One of the big games being shown off in the Nintendo booth at Gamescom this week is Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition. The game is playable at the booth and IGN is one of the many publication which went hands on with the game. Elden Ring isn’t the best optimised game, even on the more powerful Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles, so naturally many were curious to see just how it performs on Nintendo Switch 2. Sadly, there seems to be performance issues throughout combined with a confusing button layout. Even more bizarre is the fact that the game is only playable on the showfloor in handheld mode, whereas it would perform a bit better docked. IGN said that they weren’t even allowed to record footage, which goes to show that the game presumably needs some more time in the oven.
“We played Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition in handheld mode on Switch 2 and came away very disappointed with the game’s performance, especially when in the open areas like Limgrave. Frame rate drops were significant when turning the camera whilst exploring outside of the tutorial area, and this, combined with a confusing button layout on Switch 2, made combat confusing and exploration fairly dispiriting. We weren’t allowed to record gameplay at the booth, probably due to this fact, but you can hear our thoughts on Elden Ring Switch 2 handheld gameplay in this video. Elden Ring Tarnished Edition releases in 2025, so hopefully there’s time for Bandai Namco to work on its performance.”
The game looked a bit of a mess in the Switch 2 Direct. They can’t just blame the hardware either, Cyberpunk has really obliterated that excuse for devs. Also, how have they managed to mess up the button layout? The Switch 2 has the same buttons as any other console? I don’t imagine the lack of analogue triggers is going to be significant in this game?
Sounds like a poor effort to me, and honestly I’d recommend delaying rather than releasing the game in a poor state.
I’d rather they delay this, they’ll have too. I think most people are keen to buy this for switch 2 for the portability, I’d rather it was pushed till next year, even later. JUST GET IT RIGHT PLEASE!!!
Bandai Namco port not running well? Not surprising at all.
Lol I was wondering who was going to be the first to say this.
Well it seems that branding it the “Tarnished Edition” was indeed a suitable choice then.
Looks alright to me
You are at Gamescom? So you’re saying IGN is lying/exaggerating?
Bandai Namco getting revenge for Nintendo giving them the boot from early Metroid Prime 4 development.
They’re making Kirby Air Riders and Nintendo owns a share of Bandai Namco.
Nah, it’s just Bandai and FS getting way over their heads. The game itself isn’t exactly optimized.
Lies
I’ve heard it plays at 30fps. Me no likey
I mean, you can’t expect anything fairly demanding to run well on such low end hardware. Switch 2 is best for games that are not hardware heavy, otherwise this kind of thing is expected. That doesn’t mean to say it can’t have decent looking games, just don’t expect nice looking third party titles to appear.. especially from PC or when next gen consoles come out in a couple of years.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the PS4 version of Elden Ring run at 60fps? I’d take lower resolutions with a 60fps performance mode any day.
Feels like this game is almost in a nutshell.
I played most of Elden Ring on PS4 before I had got the PS5. I expect it to run like it did on that system. Which was a solid and stable experience for me.
It was obvious this was a half assed money grab, by the fact its on a game key. Those are a great way to tell which companies are just trying to do the bare minimum.