- Bethesda’s Matt Carofano discusses the Switch 2 port of Skyrim
- Talking to Nintendo Life, he stats the porting process was “really easy”
- The Switch 2 port of Skyrim is available now for $59.99 / £52.99
Yes, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is the gift that keeps on giving. Or rather, the game that keeps on releasing; this time on Nintendo Switch 2.
Shadowdropped onto the system by Bethesda, who traditionally love a shadowdrop (see The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered from earlier this year), Skyrim is a game with a reputation for inevitably coming to absolutely everything. Then again, it doesn’t seem like the Switch 2 version required all that much work.
In an interview with Nintendo Life, Matt Carofano – creative director for the Switch 2 port and lead artist of Skyrim’s original release – discussed the process of bringing the beloved RPG to Nintendo’s handheld platform.
“It’s really easy,” said Carofano of the re-release process and working with Nintendo. “We’re huge fans of Nintendo, love working with them and getting our games to their consoles. And because there’s a new console, it’s ‘Hey, let’s bring back one of our most beloved games to the Switch 2 and see how we can improve it and make it the best experience for that console’.”
He continued: “We had previously done the version for the Switch, so this was going back to that and making improvements on it. So it was really an easy development process and actually pretty quick in terms of our timelines.”
In terms of the port’s qualities, Carofano said: “A lot of it was really just focusing on taking advantage of the new hardware. We can use DLSS now and get better resolution, better performance, and the game loads faster. Switch 2 has the Joy-Con 2 controllers that let you use mouse controls, so we added that.
“A lot of it is really just, ‘How do we take advantage of the Switch 2? What can it do? And [how can we] give players the best version of Skyrim for that console?'”
Of course, the re-release memes we’re lost on Carofano; even he sees the humor in constantly bringing this 13-year-old game back into modern conversation.
“It’s a bit of a joke at this point how often we release Skyrim,” he said, “but it’s a great game. We want everyone to be able to play it in the best way possible.”
For me personally, $59.99 / £52.99 is a bit steep for a modern release of Skyrim. When it’s readily available on other platforms – with mod support – for much less, it’s hard to justify picking it up again even with the benefits of portable play. That said, if its future discounts on Switch 2 are as good as they are on other systems, well, let’s just say I’m not wholly immune to the charms of Tamriel’s winterly north.
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