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Last night, Bethesda quietly rolled out the new Switch 2 version of Skyrim. The moment came and went with little in the way of hype build up and now we know why that may be. The Switch 2 version of the game eats up far more space than the original, and you get very little in return for that.
The original version of Skyrim Special Edition for the Nintendo Switch required less than 15GB of storage space to install. The Switch 2 version of Skyrim is only available in its Anniversary Editon form. Due to the extra content added by the Creation Club mods, as well as the addition of higher resolution textures, means that the Switch 2 edition of Skyrim requires over 50GB of storage space to install. This is almost as big as Cyberpunk 2077, which is a far more dense and graphically intensive title.
On the Switch 2, Skyrim players can expect to see higher resolution textures, improved shadows and denser vegetation, essentially moving from a low/medium graphics preset to a high graphics preset. For resolution, you'll get dynamic 1080p in handheld mode, or up to 1440p while running the Switch 2 docked. Unfortunately, whether you are playing docked or handheld, the frame rate remains capped at 30FPS, just as it did on the original Nintendo Switch.
This frame rate cap is pretty disappointing considering that Skyrim is a near 15-year old game, and other handhelds like the Steam Deck are capable of running the game at 60FPS, as are competing game consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation. Even Cyberpunk 2077 manages to achieve a 40FPS performance mode, and that is a game that should not look as good as it does or run as well as it does on the Switch 2. In all, this gives the impression that the Switch 2 edition of Skyrim had very little extra work put into it to truly get the most out of Nintendo's new hardware.
KitGuru Says: If we had been talking about Oblivion Remastered here, then I would have been more accepting of a 30FPS frame rate cap, but this is Skyrim. It looks the same as it did a decade ago, but with hardware advancements, it should at least run better than it did a decade ago. Unfortunately, that is not the case here.
