For a double-A game, a Switch port of Red Faction Guerrilla is pretty ambitious stuff. This release was always a physics showcase – to the point where we used the Xbox One X remaster as a point of comparison against Microsoft’s destruction-driven multiplayer Crackdown 3. The original last-gen release pushed the Xbox 360’s 3.2GHz PowerPC cores hard and we suspect the key challenge here was in making that physics system work effectively on just three 1GHz ARM Cortex A57s. Surprisingly though, this aspect of the game works rather well.
Graphically though, the Switch port is something of a mixed bag, almost like a current-gen/last-gen hybrid. It does indeed draw upon the new visual elements of the PS4 and Xbox One ‘Re-Mars-tered’ editions, so aspects iike texture detail, specular highlights and crepuscular rays are definitely improved over the last-gen releases. Intrusive screen-tearing – an ugly aspect of the original releases – is also gone completely.
However, texture filtering arguably looks worse than the last-gen game and resolution can be problematic, depending on how you choose to play the game. Yes, in common with the other Re-Mars-ters, quality and performance modes are included in the package. Opt for the performance preset and the frame-rate is fully unlocked, effects like ambient occlusion are removed and resolution is dynamic (792p-900p docked, 360p-576p undocked). The secondary quality mode seems to lock the pixel-count at the upper bounds and instigates a 30fps cap.
You might have noticed that the resolution divide between docked and portable configurations is rather wide and this translates into substantially performance with the game running in portable mode, regardless of which mode you’re running in. It also means that we have two separate recommendations for the choice of mode you should use, depending on whether you’re playing docked or on the go.
Portable play with the quality mode enabled is easily the most consistent way to play Red Faction Guerrilla on Switch. Resolution is locked to 576p and the frame-rate sticks pretty doggedly to the 30fps limit – with just some minor wobbles. Performance mode looks noticeably worse and while frame-rate is higher, consistency in performance is gone and DRS kicks in, and 576p is already quite low enough.