Dynasty Warriors: Origins Nintendo Switch 2 Review

Dynasty Warriors: Origins was one of the nicest surprises of last year with its generational step forward for the series across its scale, production, RPG mechanics, and more. It also felt like a make or break moment after how Dynasty Warriors 9 was received. I played and loved it on both PS5 and Steam Deck, but I was hoping to see it come to Switch 2 at some point. Alongside the Dynasty Warriors: Origins Visions of Four Heroes DLC launching next week, Dynasty Warriors: Origins itself is also coming to Nintendo Switch 2. Ahead of its launch, I've been playing the game on Switch 2 and revisiting it on other platforms for this port review. Make sure to read Josh's full review of the game here. My aim with this Switch 2 port review is to highlight the differences between the new Switch 2 version and other platforms while covering how the Switch 2 port itself is very good for portable play. 

Dynasty Warriors: Origins was the first Warriors game to finally deliver in its massive 1vs1000 promise and was a generational leap over prior games in immersion. Not only was it in multiple staff lists, we also featured it in our top 10 for 2025. Having played it on both PS5 and Steam Deck, I was curious to see how the Switch 2 port would end up, and how it would perform given the team mentioning the 30fps target. Having now played it, the port itself is a bit conservative, but I'm more than pleased with the handheld experience after over a dozen hours with it. For my testing, I focused on reaching the few missions where I saw noticeable performance issues on Steam Deck and also drops below 60fps on PS5. I also replayed a lot both docked and handheld to compare with other platforms. 

Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2 ships with all content and updates the original game received, but the expansion and Deluxe Edition DLC are not included in the base game. I mention this because ports that arrive a year late usually have some additional content. For Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2, the only difference is the price being $10 less than it was for other platforms in 2025. 

Before getting into the technical aspects and comparisons with other platforms, I want to highlight how good the rumble is in Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2. While it isn't as nice as the DualSense haptics implemented in the PS5 version, it feels fantastic and I recommend turning up the rumble intensity in the in-game options to the maximum. It is a big step up over most third-party games I've played on Switch 2 so far. If you aren't a fan of rumble, you can turn it off completely or reduce the intensity from the configuration settings. There is good rumble on Xbox as well, but it isn't as good as the HD rumble on Switch 2 and the haptic feedback on PS5.

I was hoping that a Switch 2 port would mean Koei Tecmo and Omega Force would sort out the text issues in Dynasty Warriors: Origins, but they are still present here. If you haven't played it yet, text in Dynasty Warriors: Origins has two issues: the size and clarity depending on platform. Even when setting subtitle options to large, the in-game text for most things is too small. This was an issue when playing on TV and it is also annoying when playing in handheld on Switch 2. The second issue is that the font in Dynasty Warriors: Origins doesn't scale correctly on every platform and resolution. Ideally, it should scale with the UI and be crisp, but it looks blurry for specific resolutions on PC and when playing the Switch 2 version docked. In handheld on Switch 2, the font is crisp (but small) while it is a bit blurry docked compared to PS5 and Xbox. 

To show the difference in how fonts are rendered across consoles (even during gameplay and in all menus), I captured the title screen at 4K on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch 2 docked. This is one area the developers should've aimed for a higher resolution when playing on Switch 2 docked. Hopefully this can be resolved in patches.

One more area the Xbox (and Steam) version excels above PS5 and Switch 2 is in language support. The Western PS5 and Switch 2 releases lack the Chinese voiceover option. Only the Steam and Xbox Series versions feature that option in addition to the English and Japanese voice options right now. Hopefully Koei Tecmo can patch this in, but right now the only console with access to Chinese voices for use with English text is the Xbox Series version.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins Switch 2 gameplay

Dynasty Warriors: Origins Switch 2 graphics modes

Despite the developers mentioning the stable 30fps target, Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2 ships with two performance modes under the graphics options. The first, or the default, is the 30fps target. The second is a variable mode that just uncaps the frame rate with no other difference that I could tell based on the time I've played and multiple comparison screenshots. One annoyance about this setting is that it also affects the game's menus and UI. If you play with the 30fps frame rate target, even the menus and UI navigation is all at 30fps. I hope a future patch makes it so the menus and UI are all at 60fps with the frame rate limit just for the actual gameplay.

After the time I've put into Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2, I think the 30fps mode is better docked and the variable option more suited for handheld play. Without VRR docked, the unstable performance is a bit too variable for my liking, but I was happy with how it felt handheld. While Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2 isn't as smooth as Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, it is definitely a massive step up in scale and stability over the Switch 1 Warriors ports and games we had.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins Switch 2 docked vs handheld

Barring differences in clarity, the major change I noticed between docked and handheld was cuts to foliage and level of detail. Even areas like the world map see foliage cuts when playing handheld compared to docked with the level of detail for specific objects in the environment less when playing handheld . I've included two comparisons below to showcase the graphics difference between docked and handheld. Note that I used the system capture for screenshots below so only use the images below to see the foliage and other graphics changes rather than the resolution differences.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins Switch 2 vs PS5

Dynasty Warriors: Origins on PS5 offers multiple graphics modes with different frame rate targets, but I stuck to the 60fps option and loved my time with it. I didn't notice drops below 60fps outside of two specific missions when I played it last year and it is by far the most-polished Warriors game I have played when it comes to the technical aspects. Moving over to the Switch 2 port played docked, the major cuts I noticed immediately are to clarity, post-processing, draw distance in some aspects, and obviously the frame rate. 

Barring the frame rate and clarity, the most noticeable difference is the animation culling. While it happens on all platforms to some degree, it is very noticeable on Switch 2 with it happening close to the player in some instances. If you plan on playing Dynasty Warriors: Origins purely on TV or docked, I recommend playing it on PS5 or Xbox Series X rather than Switch 2. Those versions offer a boost to not only clarity, but also frame rate with a 60fps (or even higher from the in-game options) target. 

Note: For the comparison below, I used a 4K capture device for both the PS5 and Switch 2 (docked) and then cropped the images to showcase the difference. I recommend viewing the image in full screen or at full resolution to see the differences and not relying on the thumbnail in this article. 

Dynasty Warriors: Origins Switch 2 vs Steam Deck

I completed Dynasty Warriors: Origins pre-release on Steam Deck. Despite being a PS5 generation Warriors game, it is very well-optimized, but there was quite a difference in playing with a 30fps target on Steam Deck and cut back visuals compared to the full visual experience on PS5 last year. Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2 is closer to how it felt on Steam Deck, but it does have some visual advantages when playing handheld like improved clarity in areas and generally delivering a more stable experience. The only way to get a higher frame rate on Steam Deck was using upscaling. In the final mission of Chapter 1 featuring a lot of particle and environmental effects, the Switch 2 held up better performance wise than Steam Deck as well. In its current state, I'd say the Switch 2 is the better portable version than Steam Deck for Dynasty Warriors: Origins. The one area the Switch 2 version falters a lot is load times as I will cover below. 

Note: For the comparison below, I used the Steam screenshot functionality on Steam Deck and the Switch 2 capture functionality since there's no other way to get handheld screenshots right now. I then cropped them to show the difference side by side.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins load times across Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC

To measure load times, I had Dynasty Warriors: Origins installed to my internal storage on PS5, internal storage on Xbox Series X, the internal storage on Switch 2, and the internal SSD on Steam Deck and ROG Ally. I measured the time to load a save and loading the title screen from the platform dashboard. The results are below measured in seconds. I also mashed A or X to skip all the logos and save as much time as possible here. 

While the results aren't bad on any platform with the PS5 loading saves the quickest, the Switch 2 port's load times for every little thing in between missions and cut-scenes are longer than other platforms. This is also noticeable when skipping cut-scenes compared to other platforms with the Switch 2 taking a bit longer for everything. The PS5 version loads save files the quickest, and I was a bit surprised to see the Xbox Series X version vary that much across 5 different tests. I included a range for when the results were different across tests.

If you plan on playing Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2, don't judge the performance options in the first few missions because things don't get hectic where you will notice drops until the final mission in Chapter 1. Beyond that, I recommend using the variable mode in handheld and the 30fps mode when playing docked. You can try both and see what you like more, but I found the variable frame rate mode a bit too unstable for my liking when playing docked. Hopefully a future patch adds an option to keep menus at 60fps while the gameplay is 30fps as well. 

Dynasty Warriors: Origins, one of 2025's best games, has gotten a great handheld conversion for Nintendo Switch 2. While it is unfortunate that this late port doesn't include the new Visions of Four Heroes DLC in its base release, this is easily one of the better Switch 2 ports and a massive step up over the Warriors games on Switch 1 in just about every way. If you skipped it on other platforms or just want a great portable experience, Dynasty Warriors: Origins on Switch 2 is an easy recommendation.