DOOM Eternal comes to Nintendo Switch with gyroscope aiming

Numbers first: DOOM Eternal came out on March 20, 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia, and in its launch month alone sold about 3 million digital copies, according to SuperData, against 957 thousand for 2016’s DOOM in the same period. On December 8, 2020, almost nine months later, id Software’s game arrived on the Nintendo Switch, as a digital version on the eShop.

Bethesda published the launch trailer in Portuguese:

The port was made by Panic Button, a studio in Austin, Texas, that became a specialist in bringing heavy games to the Switch. It was the one that adapted Rocket League in 2017 and, later, DOOM (2016) and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and the studio says it has worked with the Switch hardware since before the console launched, in partnership with Nintendo and Nvidia.

The new control feature is gyroscope aiming. In practice, this means you can fine-tune your aim by moving the console itself or the Joy-Con, while the analog stick handles the bigger movements. Both methods work together, according to the game’s eShop page. For those playing in handheld mode, it’s the kind of feature that makes a difference in a fast shooter like this one.

Translating the jargon: Panic Button was founded at the end of 2007 by former Acclaim employees and also does contract work on other platforms, such as the 4K updates of games for PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. On the Switch, the studio’s philosophy is to keep the game faithful to the original within the limits of the hardware and add features that make sense on the console, such as touch or motion controls.

What came next

The first part of The Ancient Gods expansion came out in October 2020 and the second in March 2021, for the other platforms. In July 2022, Limited Run Games distributed physical copies of the Switch version. The series continued with DOOM: The Dark Ages, released in 2025. The ready-made joke: the Slayer now fit in your backpack.

Source: Bethesda.