Not since Call of Duty: Ghosts launched on Wii U in 2013 has a mainline Call of Duty game appeared on a Nintendo console. In 2026, Modern Warfare 4 breaks that roughly 14-year dry spell by releasing on Switch 2, and according to IGN, which played campaign missions ahead of its full review, the port performs better than one might expect.
The version was built by Digital Legends, the Activision studio dedicated to this release. For IGN’s full review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, the game was played on PC as a benchmark for its most ideal form. Placed side-by-side with that, the Switch 2 version shows an obvious difference — it looks stunning and runs smoothly on PC — but it did not disappoint visually in the way feared.
The textures are far less detailed than on other platforms, with flat surfaces and faces smoothed over to give a plasticine-like impression of the campaign’s characters. It is by no means a looker, but given the reduced horsepower of Nintendo’s latest console, gameplay ran smoothly at 30fps while docked in 4K.
The campaign stays locked at 30 frames per second and maintained a consistent frame rate with no hitching or stuttering even during some of the story’s most explosive sequences, while multiplayer targets 60 fps.
While it remains a visual downgrade compared with PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X — a trade inherent to the platform — Nintendo Switch 2 owners who have been locked out of Call of Duty for over a decade are getting a version that feels as snappy as the series usually is, even if slightly muddier than Nintendo’s own crisp visuals.
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