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‘Doom’ Nintendo Switch update finally adds motion controls

DOOM Launch Trailer - Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch version of Doom is a pretty remarkable achievement, with the campaign and multiplayer fully playable in the palm of your hands. The game originally didn’t ship with the option to aim with motion controls, however, and a new update has answered fans’ requests.

“With today’s update, we’ve added motion aiming to Doom, a much-requested control option that allows you to utilize the built-in gyroscope of the Joy-Con for more precise aiming,” said Bethesda community manager Jason Leavey in an update post.

In a similar manager to other shooters on the Nintendo Switch, as well as the PlayStation Vita, players will be able to use the motion controls in conjunction with traditional analog sticks. This should help to compensate for the smaller sticks included on the Joy-Con. There’s even an option to use inverted motion controls, if you’re a monster.

Additionally, a new party system should make it easier to find multiplayer matches through the Switch’s somewhat barbaric system, and a number of technical fixes are in the update. These include a fix for an audio bug that caused nearly all sound to completely cut out until the player restarted a previous checkpoint, as well as a crash caused by the BFG weapon, texture issues in multiplayer, and unresponsive controls in the main menu. The average resolution has also been bumped in certain areas of the game — when playing with the system docked, it’s noticeably blurrier than the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC versions.

Doom released late last year for Nintendo Switch, along with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but Bethesda isn’t done bringing its games to the platform. This year, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus will be coming to Switch, and it’s being ported by Panic Button, the same studio behind the Doom port. In an interview late last year, MachineGames narrative designer Tommy Tordsson Bjork claimed it would be “as good” as Panic Button’s work on Doom, and we’re certainly up for bashing some Nazi skulls again.

Doom is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and Nintendo Switch. The Switch version doesn’t include the SnapMap editor, but it does feature all DLC from the other versions of the game.

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Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
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