Skyrim fans blast ‘unplayable’ Nintendo Switch 2 port over its bad frame rate

Aside from barely feeling like an improvement over the Switch 1 version, Skyrim’s Switch 2 port suffers from very noticeable input lag.

Bethesda really can’t stop re-releasing The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, can it? Just as it had run out of new platforms to port the game to, Nintendo came along and released the Switch 2.

Considering Skyrim is already on the original Switch (and runs surprisingly well, even in portable mode), it shouldn’t have been a shock to see Bethesda suddenly drop a Switch 2 port earlier this week.

Fans were quick to pounce on it, especially since it’s a free upgrade if you own the Anniversary Edition on Switch 1, but the port has just as quickly garnered a sour reputation.

You’ll find no shortage of complaints across social media about the port and it’s not because it’s especially buggy… well, no buggier than the original game. It’s because despite the jump to stronger hardware, its performance is more or less identical to the Switch 1 version.

Based on a comparison video by Nintendo Life, the load times are certainly improved, but the game remains locked to a frame rate of 30 frames per second.

There’s little excuse for Skyrim not to run better when the more graphically intensive Cyberpunk 2077 – the game that ran awfully at first on the PlayStation 4 – can maintain a stable 40fps on Switch 2.

Ubisoft’s Switch 2 ports of Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows have also seen plenty of praise and while both aim for 30fps, those games were originally built with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in mind. Skyrim, by comparison, is 14 years old and came out on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

It has been pointed out that it’s not easy to get Skyrim running at 60fps on other formats either, although there is a fan mod available on both PlayStation and Xbox that boosts the frame rate – so it’s not as if it’s completely impossible.

‘How can a 14-year-old game not run at 60fps on my $500 Nintendo Switch 2? It’s unacceptable to me that it doesn’t at all take advantage of the hardware despite what the eShop description says,’ writes Greatsnes on Reddit, who claims they’re usually very easy to please and even they’re disappointed with the port.

While Bethesda says that the Switch 2 version has enhanced resolution, the visuals don’t seem to be much of an improvement over the Switch 1 port.

Another Redditor, schwoazfoahra, says, ‘It’s a choppy mess. They’ve turned up the vegetation and lighting effects and called it a day. In handheld mode, the game doesn’t even have native 1080p, probably upscaled with DLSS and therefore looks blurry during movement.’

It’s not just the frame rate that’s upset people. The Switch 2 port also suffers from input lag as demonstrated by JampyL, who calls it ‘unplayable.’

EditorEducational201 compares it to ‘the kind of input lag you’d get trying remote play on any console with bad Wi-Fi,’ though others go so far as to say that streaming games through PlayStation and Xbox aren’t as bad as this.

Even trying to get the free upgrade is a messy process, at least when upgrading from a physical copy of the Switch 1 version, according to Apprehensive-Age2562.

‘If you have the physical game and Anniversary Edition DLC, you have to manually delete everything (and the game icon) then redownload the base game without the Anniversary Edition DLC to access the free upgrade from the main in-game menu,’ they explain.

They also agree that the input lag is awful: ‘There’s like a whole second between me flicking the stick and my character moving its head.’

As WeswePengu points out, this doesn’t bode well for the Switch 2 port of Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, which is scheduled to launch next year and already saw a messy release last month.

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