Does Gotham Knights Nintendo Switch leak hint at upcoming Switch 2 announcement?

Amid the recent influx of Nintendo Switch 2 hardware news, various game leaks have also surfaced. This includes Gotham Knights, which is reported to be coming to the hybrid console soon. The controversial open-world co-op title, which is centered around the DC Comics heroes, has been rated by ESRB for the Nintendo Switch.

This is interesting news since the game had skipped the last-gen consoles in favor of current-gen platforms back on launch in 2022.

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Could Gotham Knights work on the Nintendo Switch and also come to the successor?

Gotham Knights has also been rated for Switch by the ESRB byu/ezidro3 inGamingLeaksAndRumours

The ESRB rating features the description of Gotham Knights by WB Games Montreal, any parental warnings and their descriptors, as well as the platforms it is on. The platforms section has been updated to include the Nintendo Switch. This is a follow-up to another recent rating by the Singapore board. In a nutshell, it is pretty much a giveaway that the title is headed to the hybrid console soon.

Of course, that brings up the topic of feasibility. Gotham Knights skipped the last-gen PS4 and Xbox One platforms to deliver a "next-gen" co-op experience. The game was originally slated for those systems, but support was eventually dropped so that the team could support the versions for modern hardware.

This caused much outrage from fans, especially when the title launched with subpar visuals and performance. Even on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, the game does not have a performance mode and is capped at 30 FPS. So, to see a Nintendo Switch version in the works is surprising.

Could Gotham Knights be feasible on Nintendo's aging Tegra X1 hardware? Considering we have seen a plethora of ambitious "impossible" ports thus far, this might just be another one crossed off the list.

However, some fans may wonder if it could be a cloud version. This is a good point, as many technically demanding games utilize cloud streaming on the Nintendo Switch. Examples include Control Ultimate Edition, Hitman 3, and Resident Evil Village.

These titles are not ideal renditions since they are streamed from a PC to the Nintendo Switch. This means players will require a strong and seamless internet connection. Furthermore, when the service eventually shuts down at the end of the Nintendo Switch lifecycle, these games will be lost forever.

Thankfully, that is likely not the case with Gotham Knights. No other cloud games have received ratings on the Nintendo Switch in such a manner, so this hints at a native game release. In fact, players may just find out soon, as a brand-new Nintendo Direct is scheduled to air on September 14, 2023.

With plenty of secret announcements stowed away for late 2023, Gotham Knights may be included. However, this paints a bigger picture: this game, among other rumored high-end titles, such as Mortal Kombat 1, will also be gearing up for a Nintendo Switch 2 launch. The next-gen console from Nintendo is the worst-kept secret in video game history, so it is a matter of "when" and not "if."

Given that Gotham Knights was built from current-gen hardware to begin with, it would be a no-brainer to see it make its way to Nintendo Switch 2. Now, whether this is via backwards compatibility, an enhanced "Pro" build for the game, or something else is another matter entirely. With more and more modern titles coming to Nintendo Switch, its successor's library gets ever richer.