The first Nintendo Switch game running Unreal Engine 4, Snake Pass, is now available to the public, so we can finally see how well the Epic Games engine performs on Nintendo's new hardware. Fortunately, the answer is well, which is good news for other developers looking to build games on the popular engine for the Switch.
Traditionally the Unreal Engine hasn't worked particularly well with Nintendo hardware. It saw little support on the Wii U and after many third party developers stopped supporting the console, there just wasn't much in the way of releases for it using UE. However, prior to the release of the Switch, Nintendo claimed to be making big strides in not only improving the support for the latest Unreal Engine, but claimed that its internal developers had been getting much better at using it.
That could well mean we'll see some first party Nintendo titles using the Unreal Engine in the future.
This latest test was run was completed by Eurogamer's Digital Foundry, which shows that the frame rate is almost identical between the Switch and PS4 versions of the game, though there are a few post processing effects missing.
There is also a difference in resolution, but with decent anti-aliasing, the Switch version still looks almost identical. Portable mode on the Switch does reduce resolution and detail levels, but that is expected with the Switch needing to save battery life in that mode.
For a port though, Snake Pass looks great and should mean that future games built with UE 4 should port well to the Switch.