But Like, In A Fun Way
DC Universe Online, that MMO about having Superman for a mentor, is coming to the Nintendo Switch! Sadly, I know more or less nothing about the game. I do have a history with MMOs, however. It is with this background in mind that I can say with certainty that DCUO will tear up the Switch once it’s actually released.
The premise is pretty simple. You drum up a hero, choose a mentor to guide you forward, and start fighting crime. It’s pretty standard on the surface, but the team at Daybreak have put in major work to make sure DC Universe Online doesn’t succumb to the traps that snag so many MMOs on a long enough timeline. Brand new players don’t have to wait 100 levels to see new content, and experienced players can log on with fresh recruits, thanks to a complex scaling system. Any episode you want to play can be played on several different difficulty settings. On top of that, seasoned heroes can take a temporary handicap in order to play with brand new players. This means that you never feel too weak or too strong for any given piece of content.
This is to say nothing of the tremendous power variety available. No matter what kind of hero you want to mess with, you absolutely can. Things like flight, beam weapons, auras, and more are all on the table. Which leaves us with the most important question: how well does the game run on the Nintendo Switch? After some hands-on time, the answer is: pretty dang good. I couldn’t get a really proper feel for the game’s performance, as we were on some sort of private server. It’s not yet clear how well the Switch can juggle server load and graphical load at the same time. But all the evidence suggests that this is the game you remember.
I was up front with the team about my limited time for the black holes of productivity that are MMOs. The hope is that with the Switch, players new and old will find a proper balance between game time and life time. The system is famous for its accessibility and flexibility, after all. I can’t say for sure that I’ll find any more spare moments than I already squeeze out of each day. I’ll surely dump a few hours into that massive character creator, though. Who doesn’t want to play a superhero in rainbow tights and bird feathers?
