Raw Fury has shown tremendous support for Nintendo Switch with its titles. However, the absence of a Blue Prince port on either Switch or Nintendo Switch 2 was disappointing, even though I expected it to show up at some point. During this week’s Indie World Showcase, the Dogubomb-developed roguelike puzzler saw a surprise shadow drop on Switch 2, bringing it to a Nintendo platform for the first time.
If you haven’t played Blue Prince before, it blends elements of puzzle games, mystery, roguelikes, resource management, and more together to create something that constantly floors you while also sometimes frustrating you with its RNG. Blue Prince is the rare modern game that actually requires note-taking (or screenshots for reference if you’re lazy, like I am). In a lot of ways, it feels like a game design masterclass, but that isn’t obvious early on.
When you first start a new game in Blue Prince, you are tasked with drafting ever-changing rooms in a peculiar manor. Every door you interact with has you deciding one of a few rooms to draft as you try to reach Room 46 at the end. On paper, you could just plan for each step towards the goal and pick accordingly, but the resource management is what sets this apart from other walking simulators or even puzzle games. Every room you enter and exit counts; some have currency, consumables, or just shed more light on the mystery here.
I dropped Blue Prince multiple times last year before finally clicking with it, and revisiting it now through its Nintendo Switch 2 port has been both amazing and disappointing. I always thought Blue Prince felt perfect for portable play with its structure, but there was one aspect that added a big caveat to that recommendation. You cannot suspend and save mid-run, and these runs can sometimes take a long time. On Switch 2, expect to either give up a run or use the sleep mode often.
Last year, I played Blue Prince on both PS5 and Steam Deck. For some context, it can’t do a locked 60 frames per second on Steam Deck, and I ended up playing with native resolution and a 45 frames per second / 90hz setting on my Steam Deck OLED. The 60 frames per second target experience saw some dips while loading and in specific rooms while moving quickly. It never faltered from 45 frames per second. On PS5, I noticed it had some cuts to shadows compared to the Xbox Series X version I played later on, but both delivered solid experiences with a 60 frames per second target. I didn’t have any major drops.
Moving over to Nintendo Switch 2, Blue Prince felt solid when played in handheld with good visuals, but the load times are noticeably long alongside the 30 frames per second target. I was surprised to see the same 30 frames per second target when playing docked as well. In fact, docked play doesn’t even run at a high resolution, with it looking notably soft when I played on my 1440p monitor. 30 frames per second in a game like this isn’t a huge deal since it is stable, but I expected better given the resolution here and the performance elsewhere.
I measured the load times with Blue Prince installed to the Switch 2 internal storage, PS5 internal storage, Xbox Series X internal storage, and Steam Deck OLED internal storage. I measured the initial time taken to get to the title screen from the console dashboard and the time taken to start a new run after skipping any cut-scenes:
| Platform | Dashboard To Title | Loading A Save |
|---|---|---|
| Switch 2 | 25 | 45 |
| Steam Deck | 35 | 30 |
| PS5 | 25 | 28 |
| Xbox Series X | 35 | 34 |
Note: all versions have forced logos for the publishers and developers that you cannot skip adding to the initial launch time.
When it comes to the controls, the addition of mouse control with the Joy-Con 2 controllers is good, but it doesn’t feel nice at 30 frames per second initially. I got used to it, but I ended up wishing for gyro support instead when playing docked and handheld. Hopefully, that can be added in a future update that also brings in potential suspend/save options.
Blue Prince has always felt suited to portable play, and while it does feel right at home on Nintendo Switch 2 when played in Handheld mode, the docked experience is a bit lacking right now. The mouse controls are implemented well, but they don’t feel good at 30 frames per second, and the long load times aren’t ideal. If you only play on the go, Blue Prince on Switch 2 is an easy recommendation, but I can’t help but wish for some performance improvements when playing docked.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Raw Fury
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