An ‘Impossible’ Port That Found Its Audience
A sprawling, key-heavy roguelike wasn’t supposed to thrive on Nintendo’s aging handheld, yet Caves of Qud did more than survive on Switch—it charted. Co-creator Brian Bucklew calls the decision to bring the decades-in-the-making RPG to Nintendo’s console “not… a rational decision,” adding, “we are interested in solving impossible problems.” That itch to conquer a bad fit—keyboard-first controls, CPU-hungry systems—was exactly why they chased it.
Qud’s complexity is notorious. Its default PC controls use “a healthy chunk of the keyboard,” and its systemic simulation can hammer a processor. On paper, none of that pairs well with a nearly decade-old Switch. Bucklew embraced that contradiction. “The idea of making Caves of Qud work on Switch—initially, making Caves of Qud work on gamepad—that doesn’t seem like something that should happen. But the challenge entices me to do it.”
Designing For Gamepad, Years In Advance
The leap didn’t happen overnight. In 2024, before leaving early access, Freehold Games overhauled Qud’s UI and controls. The work unexpectedly made the game “shockingly playable” on Steam Deck and laid the groundwork for Switch. Shortcuts and layered button combos replaced deep menu-dives, so actions that once demanded a scavenger hunt through keybinds now snap into place on a controller.
Some of those inputs trace back to a quiet design pivot. “We accidentally made a choice to collapse [the way] older roguelikes would have 20 different keybinds,” Bucklew said. Instead of emulating classic labyrinths of single-letter commands, he and co-founder Jason Grinblat pushed toward menu-driven interactions. That shift preserved discovery—“It’s still quite complicated”—but kept the command surface manageable. “That makes it very amenable to gamepad play… We barely fit onto gamepad, but we do, because of that decision.”
It wasn’t just UX. Performance tuning became a months-long effort to get a deeply systemic RPG comfortable on the Switch’s modest CPU. Freehold spent “many months” optimizing, a grind that turned out to be an investment for the team’s next target.
“People Think There Is Not A Market”—Then Qud Charted
Bucklew pushed back on a common refrain he hears about Nintendo’s platform. “People think that there is not a market for systemic games on Switch,” he said. With a vast install base, even a sliver of curious players can move the needle for an indie studio. “If even a tiny amount of people want to play a deep systemic game, that is a lot of units… And I think we’ve proven that there’s a market for this kind of stuff on Switch.”
The results back him up. Bucklew said Qud’s sales on Switch peaked in the “top five” of the “Physical + Digital” category. That’s a striking feat for a digital-only release, implying it outpaced most boxed and eShop heavyweights during its high-water mark. He didn’t share exact numbers, but reported that sales have remained healthy since falling out of the very top tier.
That performance complicates the instinct to write off Switch owners as uninterested in dense, systemic RPGs. Qud isn’t streamlined for a casual audience; it’s the same thorny, imaginative machine PC fans love, just adapted for a small screen and a handful of buttons.
Next Challenge: Portrait Mode And Touch
With Switch solved, Freehold’s looking at phones. The team is experimenting with a portrait-first redesign and touch controls—arguably a tougher UX puzzle than mapping a controller. “We don’t know if we’ll be able to pull off a nice Qud portrait design, but signs look pretty good,” Bucklew said. He’s skeptical of the received wisdom that mobile players won’t stick with large RPGs. “People make claims like ‘oh, people don’t want to play big RPGs on their phone.’ Are there any actual examples of a phone-first design big RPG? Maybe single digits.”
Hardware won’t be the bottleneck this time. Modern phones are “monstrously capable,” and months of Switch optimization already wrung inefficiencies out of Qud’s simulation. That foundation lets Freehold take a swing at a form factor many studios ignore. “It makes sense for big studios to avoid that risk. But for Qud we’re building on a 20-year-old basis. We’re paying our bills. We can take these risks.”
Whatever you call it—irrational, stubborn, or just hungry for a good puzzle—the Switch port paid off. If Freehold nails a clean portrait interface, Qud could become a rare example of a full-fat, systemic RPG that works on phone screens without losing its bite. That would make two “impossible” platforms crossed off the list, and a clear signal that more PC-first oddities can thrive once someone’s willing to do the unglamorous work.
