007 First Light delayed on Nintendo Switch

007 First Light, the newest James Bond game, has unfortunately been delayed for the Nintendo Switch version. This is pretty frustrating for everyone who has been waiting for this game for a long time, but when you think about it more; it actually makes a lot of sense.

The game has first been pushed to later this summer, which means it’s not permanently canceled, but just a small delay.

No specific reason was given for this, but it’s practically certain that the issue is the Nintendo Switch being weaker hardware, and by quite a lot.

When making a game like 007 First Light, graphics have to be optimized, details reduced, and a stable FPS maintained. On Nintendo Switch, that is most often a nightmare for developers.

The game does run pretty okay on stronger platforms, which means it will release on time for the others. But when a game like this gets moved to Nintendo Switch, FPS starts dropping, loading is slow, and performance isn’t stable. That’s why developers delay the game so it doesn’t release as a half-bugged version.

As annoying as it is that such a highly anticipated game got delayed, it’s actually a very good sign. Developers don’t want to release a bad version of the game; if they did, they would have to fix it later. They want us to get the highest possible quality as soon as possible.

Nintendo Switch often has situations like this where ports for the same console come later, where the graphics get downgraded, etc... BUT, if done well, it can still be quite playable and enjoyable.

This is a standard optimization problem.
If they fix it, the game will play normally. But if they don’t, we’ll get a Laggy Bond experience! 😭