https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1uY4ZbydYc
Metroid Dread has only just released on Nintendo Switch and it’s already fully playable from start to finish in two different Switch emulators on PC. The Yuzu emulator, which displays games in their native resolution, seems to run Metroid Dread smoothly, while some players using the Ryujinx emulator, which lets you increase the resolution, are reporting stutters. That said, the Emusak add-on, which lets you download all of a game’s shaders so it doesn’t have to cache them as you go, usually helps with that.
YouTuber Gaminja captured footage of Metroid Dread running on a PC with a 6GB GTX 1060, an Intel Core i5-8400 processor, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM in both the Yuzu and Ryujinx emulators if you want to see a comparison.
Metroid Dread has been well-received so far. A direct sequel to 2002’s Metroid Fusion, it’s a return to (mostly) 2D backtracking, but with a few modern quality-of-life features and apparently a decent amount of checkpoints.
It’s not like we’re starved for Metroidvanias on PC given the existence of Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge and Axiom Verge 2, Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and the recently released Grime, but if you try playing Metroid Dread on Switch and find the controls cramp your hands, or you really want to tinker with the resolution and unlock the framerate, it’s nice to be able to, er, switch to PC.