Switch: Return To Castle Wolfenstein ported to the console thanks to capsterx

If you’re into FPS titles and World War II, then there’s a good chance you’ve heard of the Wolfenstein series which includes popular titles such as the highly acclaimed Wolfenstein 3D and 2001’s Return To Castle Wolfenstein. Now, the latter has been ported to the Nintendo Switch thanks to capsterx.

What is Return To Castle Wolfenstein?

Feel like playing a decent World War II FPS title with a fair deal of SciFi and supernatural stuff in the mix? If so, RTCW is an excellent candidate 😉 (Source)

As explained above, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, or RCTW in short, is an FPS title set in World War II initially released in 2001 on Windows. Later seeing its way onto numerous other platforms including MacOS, Xbox & the PlayStation 2, this title did pretty well both sales and reviews-wise with it getting excellent scores on PC/XBOX with slightly more mediocre ones for the PS2 version.

RTCW has you completing a series of missions in the single player campaign, which can be quite challenging on higher difficulties, that revolve around unravelling the work of the fictional SS Paranormal Division. To spice things up a bit and make the game more appealing at least in 2001, missions take place in a variety of locations including German castles, catacombs, outdoor scenes and more so you’re unlikely to get bored due to bland scenery or enemies for that matter. This is because RTCW comes with mummies & other undead enemies that do somewhat differentiate it from other FPS titles!

What about the Switch port?

Based off the same engine as the Vita’s unofficial port, RTCW on the Switch requires you to supply your own games and has some quirks worth keeping in mind. (Source)

With a quick description of RTCW out of the way, we’ll shift focus to the Switch port, by developer capsterx, based on iortcw which is an open-source game engine for the title. According to a pretty lengthy release post on its GBATemp thread, capsterx states that porting the game to the Switch was no piece of cake and while the port works, loading times are a tad slow so you may need to be a little patient with it!

Due to RTCW not being a free game, you have to supply files from the Windows version yourself which can be bought off Steam or GOG for a few bucks. After obtaining the files you need (listed in the release thread linked below), you simply have to put them in “/switch/iortcwsp/main” together with the port’s NRO and other files required to run it. It is also possible to override the control schemes currently in place with more details on how to do so in the port’s release thread.

Conclusion

You may read more about Return To Castle Wolfenstein’s port for the Switch by following the link below to its GBATemp release thread. Download links have also been provided although it is highly suggested you check out the release post first to make sure everything is set up properly.

RTCW’s Switch Port GBATemp Release Thread: https://gbatemp.net/threads/return-from-castle-wolfenstein.577517/

RTCW’s Switch Port GitHub Release Page (download link): https://github.com/capsterx-switch/iortcw/releases/tag/pre-release