Hands on With the Port at Gamescom
It’s no secret that Nintendo’s consoles are less powerful than their competitors. But that tradeoff has consequences, as those who tried Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition for the Switch 2 have discovered. A demo of the port was available to play at Gamescom, and some have walked away from their experience concerned. Felix Sanchez of Nintendo Life shared his thoughts on the upcoming release in an August 20th video shot from Cologne.
A Tarnished Framerate
Bandai-Namco requested that those playing the demo not record any footage, and not for good reasons. Sanchez spent around fifteen minutes with the game, playing in handheld mode. The game’s graphics are reportedly quite nice for a Switch 2 port, though nowhere near as good as other consoles. While the tutorial area had no issues, Sanchez reported the framerate tanking to an abysmal 20 or even 15 FPS when in the overworld. This happened even during “simple stuff” like riding through a forest. And given the size of the overworld, that’s a big problem for the game’s release. Sanchez compared it unfavorably to Ocarina of Time’s framerate and said he couldn’t imagine Elden Ring launching in its current state.
A Bad Sign for Third Party Games
Elden Ring’s performance issues on the Switch 2 doesn’t bode well for other third-party releases. With modern AAA games demanding more out of performance and graphics, how many titles will skip the console because it just doesn’t have the power? Elden Ring released in February 2022, so it’s not as if the game just came out. Even Cyberpunk 2077’s Switch 2 port had some performance issues at launch, with its Dogtown area suffering the worst. Perhaps Bandai-Namco will get the kinks ironed out before Elden Ring’s launch, but buyers should be wary until a full review of the game’s performance comes out.
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