Gamescom attendees report ‘poor performance’ for Elden Ring and Borderlands 4 on Switch 2

Nintendo booked itself a large section of the Gamescom exhibition this year to show off the new Switch 2 console and give attendees hands-on time with new-releases and upcoming games for the console. Unfortunately, early impressions show that upcoming titles like Elden Ring and Borderlands 4 are already pushing the Switch 2 hardware to the absolute limit. 

Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition was one of the first third-party AAA games confirmed for the Nintendo Switch 2. According to Nintendo Life, hands-on impressions with the game are not great, with claims that the game struggles to hit 30FPS in handheld mode.

In the video, Nintendo Life reports that Elden Ring on Switch 2 is “really bad”, adding that it was “like playing Ocarina of Time”, with frame rates dropping into the sub-20FPS range.

We know that Elden Ring is struggling, which isn't too surprising, as the game already had frame pacing problems across other platforms. In general, optimisation is not one of From Software's strong suits. However, Elden Ring wasn't the only major AAA game to struggle on the Switch 2 at Gamescom – reports also indicate that Borderlands 4 is going to be a slog on the system.

According to EpicNNG, a Borderlands 4 Switch 2 demo was shown at Gamescom and it too struggled to consistently hit its 30FPS cap, even with just a handful of enemies on screen.

Given that Cyberpunk 2077 was a launch-day title for the Switch 2, and runs very well on the system, it is disappointing to see other titles struggling so much. However, it is also worth noting that developers are currently working on tight deadlines, as the rollout of Switch 2 development kits has been slow. It is also worth noting that many developers are not yet aware of the Switch 2's best feature – DLSS. Currently, only Cyberpunk 2077 publicly uses DLSS on Switch 2, with other titles like Donkey Kong Bananza using the much worse FSR 1.0 upscaler instead.

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KitGuru Says: While these are disappointing anecdotes to hear, I expect Switch 2 games to improve greatly in the years ahead as developers get more hands-on time with the hardware and learn more about its unique performance-saving features like DLSS, which is not present on any other console. 

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