Elden Ring is now shaping up to be an excellent Switch 2 port

The last time we had a chance to check out Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition on Nintendo Switch 2, Josh reported that the game was in a horrifying technical state – describing the experience as roughly 15~ FPS, and almost constantly running in slow motion. Naturally, when we were invited by Nintendo to a GDC appointment to check out a number of upcoming games running on the Switch 2 system, we had to see for ourselves exactly how things may or may not have improved with Elden Ring in the months since the port’s announcement.

There are a few angles to tackle, here – in the lead up to Shadows of the Erdtree, I played about a dozen hours or so of the game on my Steam Deck to get caught up for the expansion. Right now, I can tell you that you can technically hit a higher framerate on a Steam Deck than on Switch 2, yet you’re not reaching a steady 60 FPS on a Steam Deck anytime soon. Obviously, other PC gaming handhelds might land closer.

With those caveats out of the way – the current state of Elden Ring on Nintendo Switch 2 is one of the singular most impressive Switch 2 conversions I have played to date. I’ll leave the exact technical specs to Digital Foundry (and our own Mikhail, of course), but in handheld mode, the game now appears to be a solid 30FPS, and with a resolution either hitting or very visibly close to a native 1080p. It’s very sharp, and regardless of whatever internal numbers it’s running – I’m not discounting that it may be using DLSS in some form – it looks very good to the eye.

Our session was quite short, but to make the most of it, I bumrushed from the tutorial to the Margit boss fight in order to get the best representation of the game’s performance across the open world, while deliberately stretching things to the limits with active NPCs and constant loading. Even once it started raining, the game hit the 30FPS target consistently, and resolution similarly remained much the same.

We also got to check out the game in docked mode, using the new lighter knight-type class added to this version of Elden Ring. The demo we played looked to emphasize quality over performance, settling in with a 30FPS framerate at a high resolution. While the visuals aren't going to beat a high-end PC, roaming through Limgrave was plenty steady, with no major hiccups. Any observed aliasing did not strongly distract from the experience, and textures never stuck out as being muddy or missing. After adjusting for a few minutes during my time with the demo, I wasn't even consciously thinking 'This is Elden Ring on a Nintendo Switch 2' as if it were a starkly compromised or lesser version. I was just playing Elden Ring.

Of course, this is a small slice of the game – we weren’t able to test performance within any of the game’s legacy dungeons, or any of the sections outside of Limgrave. It’s certainly possible performance remains an issue later in the game. For now, however, it’s truly a night-and-day difference from earlier showings. Barring any last-minute hiccups, I wouldn’t hesitate recommending Elden Ring on Switch 2.