Hi-Rez To Shut Down Paladins’ Switch Port Due To Poor Performance.

In an official statement, Hi-Rez Studios and developer Evil Mojo has announced the shutdown of their hero shooter free-to-play game, Paladins, on Nintendo Switch. The Paladins Switch port was released in 2018, and since then, the port has received a lot of criticism in terms of performance and maintenance. Despite having multiple updates, the issues persisted, and the game is now getting delisted from Nintendo’s platform in June.

After lots of discussion and thought across our team, we’ve made the difficult decision to end support for Paladins on Nintendo Switch, with the final update it receives being Midnight Masquerade. This choice wasn’t made easily or without concern, however we realized that the performance of our Switch port was not up to our or community standards and we were unable to provide support at the level our community deserves.”

Midnight Masquerade will be the final major update Nintendo Switch players will receive for Paladins.

For more information, please read this announcement: https://t.co/iLPQgIM7UL pic.twitter.com/hGQgR1Mi6k

— Paladins: The Game (@PaladinsGame) April 19, 2023

Evil Mojo says that it has spent “countless hours” on the betterment of Paladins Switch-specific issues, but the studio faced frequent challenges that averted Paladins from being “the best game it could be.” The studios now want to shift their focus to other platforms that the game is on while saying it’ll help them have “more flexibility” with updates. 

From today, Paladins will no longer be available on the Nintendo e-shop, nor will you be able to buy the DLC or make any in-game purchases. The game will yet receive support on Switch until another update is scheduled for June. From that point on, Paladins will be inaccessible for Switch players. Fortunately enough, you can still save your progress in the game on a PC or Xbox using Hi-Rez account linking.

Apparently, this difficult decision has been long coming. When replying to a tweet in February 2021, a HiRez representative said that the developers have tried to optimize the game on Switch. Still, the console’s hardware limitations are causing issues, and the game was never actually made for the Nintendo platform. 

Additionally, Paladins is the second game from Hi-Rez to be terminated from Switch within the same week. On April 11th, Hi-Rez delisted Rogue Company from Switch pretty much for the same reasons. Rogue Company will stop receiving any support from June 20th. The game has been removed from Nintendo’s e-shop, and any purchases have also ceased.

Nintendo Switch players, please be sure to read this important announcement regarding the Switch version of Rogue Company: https://t.co/EtwfM2ngoT

— Rogue Company (@RogueCompany) April 11, 2023

Paladins was released for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in May 2018, followed by a Nintendo Switch port a month later. The port has received much criticism for its crashing and loading issues. The game crashed every 2-3 games and had trouble launching on the platform. Restarting was the only “fix” for the players. Evil Mojo has addressed the issue, but the worsening situation on Switch could be seen far earlier.

There has been no statement on refunds for players who bought the game or DLC on Nintendo Switch, and we doubt there will be any. In any case, we wish the best to Hi-Rez and Evil Mojo for their future work on Paladins on other platforms.