It's not uncommon for games to take a hit of one kind or another in order to run on Nintendo's less powerful Switch. Doom Eternal had its cutscenes capped at 20FPS on the Switch, and many other games like Crash Team Racing had their graphics downgraded from PS4 and Xbox versions so they would remain playable on the hardware. Sometimes, though, performance-related issues pop up that make the game less enjoyable, and that seems to be the case with the Switch release of Star Wars: Republic Commando.
The game's Switch-related issues revolve around a frame rate that can dip as low as 15fps. The performance issues are particularly odd considering Star Wars: Republic Commando is an updated version of a fifteen-year-old game. While some graphical enhancements were made for the new release, it wasn't a "from the ground up" remake like the recent Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2 game and certainly looks its age, so the Switch should be able to handle the prequel era Star Wars game no problem.
Reddit user brokowska420 reached out to Aspyr, the studio behind the Republic Commando re-release as well as the recent re-release of Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer, about the issue and was told that Aspyr devs were currently looking into the Switch's performance trouble and low frame rate. The response continued, "Hopefully we'll be able to resolve them soon."
Aspyr did make a few changes when creating the enhanced port of Republic Commando, so hopefully, the issue is a simple coding error that is easy to fix. The company was able to patch up the problems that Episode 1 Racer had when it first hit the Switch and PS4, so Aspyr at least has a bit of a track record when it comes to solving these types of issues.
Star Wars: Republic Commando is available now for PlayStation 4 and Switch.
