Already one of the best video games of 2025, The Drifter is an Australian export that (unsurprisingly) picked up a wealth of accolades – including Game of the Year – at multiple awards shows after its initial release on PC. Among everything that the game did superbly, one of its great achievements was offering multiple control schemes over and above what we typically see in a traditional point-and-click title, including a fantastic solution for controllers. So it only makes sense to eventually see The Drifter move across to an actual console platform, in this case the Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, and there’s never been a better reason to give it a red hot go.
There’s a lot I could say about this game and the story of Mick Carter, a down-and-out but well meaning rough sleeper that inadvertently becomes embroiled in a bout of deadly supernatural intrigue, that’s already been said in better words in the countless reviews of The Drifter’s original release. WellPlayed’s Zach Jackson rightly called it “one of the best adventure games you’ll ever play,” and David McNamara at Checkpoint Gaming isn’t wrong in suggesting it “stands confidently among the greats of Australian horror fiction,” to cite just two Aussie authorities on the subject of point-and-clicks with a distinct, local flavour.
The Drifter’s roughly eight-hour feature begins with a series of mysterious disappearances afflicting the homeless population of an fictional Australian city in a murky amalgamation of the late 90s and early 00s, and ends on the unravelling of some conspiratorial science-fuckery that hinges on ruminations of death, grief and healing. To give away too much would be a crime, but the crucial assessment is that it makes excellent function of its urban Australian trappings – in particular the seedier sort – to sell its existential horror and darkly comic characters. It’s a vibe that will either feel uncharacteristically foreign or familiar, depending on where you hail from, but boldly unique in either direction.
It’s also a great bit of play for those who wouldn’t traditionally touch a point-and-click adventure, keeping the things that make the classics of the genre, well, classics while confidently binning the most off-putting bits. Fast pacing, smart puzzles with sound logic and context, straightforward controls and UI, it’s a far cry from the dry pixel-hunting of old. And with Mick’s role to play being that of someone with the uncanny ability to cheat death by resurrecting at the moment just before it happens, The Drifter is able to offer its own take on multi-step “action” puzzles that add the pressure of time and real consequences, where you’ll die as many times as it takes to figure out how not to.
None of that has changed for the Switch release. In fact, the groundwork laid to make The Drifter play nicely on PC for those using controllers or handhelds has meant it’s translated across to Nintendo’s console wonderfully. Having direct control over Mick with the left stick while using the right to cycle around a contextual action ring that intuitively points to anything you’re close enough to observe or interact with just feels great, and the subtle little vibrations from the Joy-Con controllers as you flick between POIs reinforce just how snappy and tactile it all is. The Drifter is a game that thrives on the visceral, so this particular control scheme is and has always been the best way to play it.
Whether playing on a big screen where you’re exposed to every last, chunky pixel of the game’s exquisite, often stark and grimy but rarely less than beautiful art, or comfortably in portable mode on your Switch of choice, The Drifter has found a fitting new home for its searing presentation. I’m gutted I don’t still have a Switch OLED, as the Switch 2’s display doesn’t quite do some of the more contrasted panels justice, but that’s made up for on my telly. If you can help it, be sure to experience this one somewhere with a decent sound system, or through some nice headphones, to fully appreciate the sonic atmosphere and banger, Carpenter-esque dark synth score from Louis Meyer and Mitchell Pasmans.
If you’ve any kind of predilection towards point-and-click adventures, especially a pulpy, noir type with a talented and unabashedly Aussie cast fronted by the most gutturally-blokey bloke ever committed to a video game lead, The Drifter should already be at the top of your list. If you’ve simply been waiting for the Switch release, the great news is it’s every bit as good there.
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 | Review copy supplied by publisher
Great
- Looks and sounds fantastic in both handheld and TV modes
- Still the same excellent, breakneck point-and-click thriller
- The best controller scheme this genre has ever seen
- Sharp writing that moves through the story at a perfect clip
- So bloody Aussie
Not great
- I wish I could die and resurrect to a time before I played it
- (So I can play it again with fresh eyes, to be clear)