Final Fantasy XIV coming to the Switch 2 is a dream come true for me; one of my favorite games now in a portable form factor. I’ve put a ton of time into the game on the system, testing just about every scenario I can think of outside of becoming a streamer and having a crowd of people follow me everywhere. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the port and can recommend it to players new and old, but I certainly wouldn’t abandon PC for this version.
The thing I and most others were curious about most was performance on Switch 2. I have bad news on that front, as you’re pretty much never going to get 60 frames per second on Switch 2 outside of certain cutscenes and exactly one area in one dungeon. It’s disappointing there’s no performance mode or anything, but you can cap your framerate to 30 in Docked Mode for more stability. Portable is also capped at 30, so you’re essentially getting parity with that aside from resolution. Your framerate can and will still dip below 30 in some situations, like running around a crowded Limsa Lominsa, but Limsa ‘tis a silly place. You can hear more about performance in this short:
As for visuals, the game looks good. Not amazing; there’s a lot of aliasing, and you can definitely tell the resolution is lower when going from 1440p or 4K on PC, but good. Resolution often screws with your custom HUD setup, which is something I was worried about here, but aside from needing to increase the chatbox font and move my job gauges a bit to the right, I was able to download my configs no problem. It moves seamlessly between portable and docked modes as well, something this version has over playing the PC version on Steam Deck.
Steam Deck might be able to hit higher framerates more consistently, but Switch 2 has it soundly beat in convenience and battery life, not to mention fan noise. I gave up playing the game on Steam Deck after Dawntrail launched, as just playing the game made my Deck scream in agony and it would go from full battery to almost dead very, very quickly. That’s at the lowest possible settings and with a lower resolution than Switch 2 offers. FFXIV will still drain the Switch 2 pretty quickly, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen on the platform. Just make sure you don’t register for a duty at like 30% battery and you’re fine, or have your docked setup nearby.
Being able to go from portable to docked seamlessly here is fantastic, though the star of the show here really is portable mode. I love being able to do my dailies and slowly get every Job to cap while sitting on my couch, talking with my family, or just not sitting at my PC. Especially with the weather being so hot and my bedroom, where my computer lives, is basically an oven. I could even play outside on the porch if going outside wouldn’t melt me.
One of the best parts of portable mode is the touch screen. Sometimes navigating certain menus is just more convenient with a mouse-like setup, and just being able to touch the screen makes it super easy. In Docked mode, you can use either one of the Joy-Con 2 as a mouse, but I find this feature leaves a lot to be desired; both when you’re using it and even when you’re not. Playing with split Joy-Con 2, I found my fingers would often activate the mouse sensor, messing up my controls for a second or two. Playing with mouse mode… You just don’t have enough buttons to actually play the game unless you’re the kind of person who likes to click on their hotbar actions. You could plug in a Keyboard and just use one of the Joy-Con 2 as a mouse, which does allow for a left-handed mouse setup, but at that point you might as well just plug in an actual MMO mouse while you’re at it.
Another point of contention is that there’s no physical release. That’s not a big deal for Final Fantasy XIV as it hasn’t actually been on a disc in a long time, but on Switch 2 storage space is at a premium. Final Fantasy XIV will take up almost half of your console’s onboard storage at 108 GB. With Evercold on the Horizon, it’s only going to get bigger too. I actually bought a new microSD card specifically for this game, and am working on putting together a faux physical copy, complete with a game box and “cartridge” to store the SD card in. With… everything getting so expensive lately, I settled on a 256 GB card, so I’ll have to swap out the SD card to play my other Switch 2 games, which is inconvenient. You could simply keep FFXIV on your onboard storage and all other games on an SD card, which was recommended when the game launched as there were loading issues with the SD card, but I prefer to have at least some variety.
As of writing and most likely as of when you read this, Square Enix is offering all Switch 2 players a free month of the game. After that ends, you’ll need to pay an additional subscription fee to play on Switch 2 and other platforms like PC and PS5. If you just play on Switch 2, you simply pay the normal sub, but if, for example, you want to swap between PC and Switch 2 you’ll have to pay an additional half of the subscription each month. This is done through a weird currency obfuscation method Square Enix calls FFXIV Coins. You buy coins, then use them to pay for the sub.
First off, why the obfuscation? I’d really rather you just tell me up front what it costs without me having to translate and convert. There’s a reason Nintendo and Microsoft got rid of their points systems on their storefronts. Second, I know this is how Square got out of requiring players to need Nintendo Switch Online to play on Switch 2… but personally I already pay for NSO every year, and it’s overall cheaper than this weird Coin model; $50 a year for the Expansion Pak version as opposed to $70 a year by my math. That $70 doesn’t include an already existing subscription to FFXIV, by the way; that’s just on top of playing on Switch 2. I haven’t actually paid for my sub in a long time (thanks for literally paying my sub, Square!), but if I were to stop writing about FFXIV, I would be concerned about that additional cost. Being subscribed to NSO does get you an additional free teleport destination in-game… but I have teleport tickets; I don’t need that. It’s quite literally useless to me. In this situation, I’d probably just pick what I’m going to play on for that month: Switch 2 or PC.
Seeing as the Switch 2 version feels more like a nice supplement to me, I’d go with PC most of the time. In between MSQ patches, sure, I’ll take Switch 2, but if I go back to raiding or when there’s more story to play, I’d prefer the higher fidelity and framerate of my PC. I hope Square and Nintendo reconsider the choice of FFXIV Coin, because if they did, I’d shill this version as much as humanly possible. I mean, I’ll still do that for the game overall, but here I’d mostly recommend the free trial, then moving over to PC or being absolutely sure you want to play on Switch 2 forever. If FFXIV Coin wasn’t a thing, then you’d bet your sweet bippy I’d buy every expansion twice (read: once, thanks again Square!) so I could play on both platforms. For right now though, I’m pretty dang happy with this version.
