Elden Ring reportedly runs poorly on Switch 2, but is anyone surprised?

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”.