When Elden Ring popped up at Nintendo’s Switch 2 reveal, it was a promising sign of third-party games finding their way to the new console.
Yet reports from gamescom suggest Elden Ring runs poorly on Switch 2, particularly in handheld mode, citing low framerates in open world environments. Even publisher Bandai Namco seems to be aware of this, as footage capture has not been allowed, which seems particularly damning.
FromSoftware doesn’t have a great track record with performance, though, and after three years Elden Ring still doesn’t run perfectly on PS5, Xbox Series X, or PC. But this is the studio’s first effort on Switch 2, and it’s perhaps a worrying sign for next year’s exclusive The Duskbloods.
IGN described Elden Ring on Switch 2 as a “disaster” in handheld mode, after Eurogamer’s Ian Higton went hands-on at gamescom.
Ian was only able to play in handheld mode, but played the very start of the game. And while he was impressed with the lighting and resolution, the framerate dropped dramatically during both the Grafted Scion tutorial boss and when entering the open world. “As soon as I opened up those double doors and entered into Limgrave and you see the Erdtree in the background, it started to chug,” said Ian.
Further, the demo only has a single graphics mode with HDR switched on, but this could potentially change in the final release.
Both Jon Cartwright from GVG and Nintendo Life’s Felix Sanchez reported similar feedback. Cartwright noted how fog in the distance caused the framerate to plummet and while the game runs at 30fps, it goes “well below when anything a little bit challenging comes up”, including bosses. He was able to test docked mode, which was “better but not perfect”.
Sanchez, meanwhile, was impressed by the graphics despite being not quite on par with current consoles, but in the open world “the framerate just tanks – it’s really bad and I understand why they don’t want you to see this because wowee zowee it is terrible”.
It’s certainly disappointing to hear, especially when Elden Ring does run perfectly fine on PS4 and Xbox One, not to mention the Steam Deck already provides a handheld mode with steady performance. Over on reddit, fans appear to be upset by the news, but not particularly surprised following FromSoftware’s poor optimisation of games in the past.
Of course, the Switch 2 is weaker compared to PS5 or Xbox Series X, but it does have VRR capabilities – it’s not clear if this has been implemented by the developers.
Perhaps this poor performance shouldn’t come as a surprise. Two years after the base game launched, FromSoftware released the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. Yet, as Digital Foundry reported last year, this still did not fix many underlying technical issues with the game, particularly its long-standing stuttering. Seeing issues with the Switch 2 version suggests FromSoftware just doesn’t intend to fix them, with performance seemingly not a priority.
Digital Foundry also examined the Elden Ring Switch 2 trailer from its initial reveal, noting its seemingly poor performance, despite its impressive pixel count. It seems frame pacing issues from the trailer capture are present in the game itself. Still, when Cyberpunk 2077 – an infamously more technically demanding game – runs well on Switch 2, it’s disappointing to see FromSoftware struggling.
Elden Ring remains without a Switch 2 release date beyond this year, so there’s still time for fixes to be implemented. It’s the first FromSoftware-developed game to make it to Nintendo’s Switch family (there’s been no mention of an external team handling the port), as the previously released Dark Souls Remastered was handled by Virtuos. But it won’t be the last. As revealed earlier this year, FromSoftware has the Switch 2 exclusive multiplayer game The Duskbloods on the way.
Will it suffer a similar fate? It’s unclear what engine that game is being created in, but considering it’s a Switch 2 exclusive from the ground up, you’d hope FromSoftware would optimise the game accordingly rather than shoehorning Elden Ring to make it fit. Yet the precedent of poor performance – and FromSoftware’s seeming apathy towards it – has already been set.
