Well, I thought I would do a post on the subject that has been of great interest lately, which is on upcoming release of the action RPG video game, Elden Ring on the Switch 2, named Elden Ring - The Tarnished Edition and I wanted to address the recent footage that has surfaced from the Gamescom event last week. So, the footage shown for the game has not been considered the best and shows visible frame rate dips and with numerous reports of the handheld version suffering major frame dips that slow the game down to almost a slideshow.
So, I thought I would throw in my thoughts on the matter and moving forward that they hopefully fix these issues before any launch date is given. So, with that said let's take a closer look at what we know so far.
GAMESCOM EVENT
Well, it was revealed prior to the Gamescom event, which took place last week on 20-24 August in Cologne in Germany that Elden Ring would be one of the games at the event for the Switch 2, which naturally created alot of buzz given its a much anticipated title for the console. However there was plenty of other games at this event such as Borderlands 4, Final Fantasy VII, Metroid Prime 4 and of course the highly anticipated idie game, Hollow Knight Silksong, which had huge cues of people waiting to play it (more so than Elden Ring!).
ELDEN RING PERFORMANCE ISSUES
So, at Gamescom it was revealed that numerous players tried out Elden Ring in handheld mode and the results were far from impressive, as several gaming outlets such as IGN and Nintendo Life said the game ran terribly in handheld mode with significant frame drops, especially out in the world of Limgrave. The game however was lauded for looking good on the Switch 2 as I believe the target for this game on the Switch 2 is 1080p at 30fps. This also resulted in Bandai Namco staff at the event to not even allow people to record footage of it, given how bad it apparently ran, which frankly is quite worrying for the future of the game on the Nintendo platform.
FAN EXPO EVENT
However at the Fan Expo event that was held the same week in Toronto, Canada, actual footage of the game surfaced showing the game in docked mode and this footage looked while not perfect, did look playable as one attendee was show exploring Limgrave with no obvious slowdowns in the framerate. However, this is not to say that the footage ran perfectly as some frame rate issues I think still remained even in docked mode but it did look playable. However, it is hard to fully understand how well it ran based on the captured footage, which was taken presumably on a phone or video camera, which just showed the game running on LCD screen (I think). This however did some go against the notion of the terrible performance in handheld mode.
POTENTIAL GAME BUILD ISSUES AT THE EVENTS
So, this brings me onto another possible issue, which was to do with the possibility of the game build at the event being an earlier version of the game with an IGN presenter at the event, suggesting a possible current build might still have been in development and not ready for public display. There is also the possibility that the versions at both Gamescon and Fan Expo were different also and may account for the possiblity of it maybe running slightly better at Fan Expo than the former, however this is just speculation and we don't really know for sure.
POSSIBLITY FOR FIXING THESE ISSUES
So, moving forward we have to look at the possibility of Bandai Namco fixing the issues for this release, as what we know for certain is, if Bandai were to release the game in its current state, there would a huge backlash and be deemed as being totally unacceptable by gamers and consumers alike. So, we just have to hope that given the performance problems with the game that Bandai will try and address them before the game is due to be released but at this stage we are still waiting for a release date with the vague timeframe so far given just as 2025. However, given these issues, we also have to assume the game might be pushed back to 2026 to try and resolve the frame rate issues of the game, which might be for the best if they cannot guarantee a release date for this year.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So, to finish up, I think it is definitely concerning that Elden Ring is currently running in a less than acceptable way on the Switch 2 platform. It also of course it has to be said that this game has even had its issues on other platforms with frame rate performance. In fact I think the only real smooth running version of the game is the backward compatible PS4 version on the PS5, which does run at a locked 60fps but nowhere else has it achieved this even on PC.
It also has to be said that Fromsoft always have had a bad history of getting their games running smoothly on most platforms, as it seems they have never updated their game engine in the last 10 years since the release of Bloodborne. Their upcoming title however, the Duskbloods does show more promise as its trailer looked remarkably smooth with a 1080p 30fps performance that run unlike anything Fromsoft has put out so far.
So, moving we just have to hope that Bandai Namco will fix the issues with this Switch 2 port because otherwise it would be a huge disservice to the game to release a subpar version of it and charge full price. I for one, intend to buy the game on the Switch 2 but I will certainly hold off on the reviewsbefore doing so, because I won't entertain buying unless it runs in an accetpable way.
So, that's it for this one guys and I will be back soon with another post.
Until then its bye for now!
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