First, I admit that my headline is hyperbolic. Best and worst are subjective and no word is entirely applicable when it comes to Elden Ring on Switch 2. The most verbose and accurate headline that wouldn’t inspire the precious clicks we need to survive in this hellish media landscape is: “Elden Ring is fine on Switch 2, so if you can play it elsewhere I would recommend it, but if this is your only option and you haven’t played it yet, then this version will do the job.” I played about two hours of Elden Ring on the Switch 2 in docked mode. Making your way through the tutorial in the caves feels pretty good. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hit 60 FPS, but it’s consistent, which is important. Leaving the caves and entering the open world is where the game stumbles, but not in a dangerous way. Moving the camera quickly in the open world is awkward and jumping on your horse, Torrent, is where I felt the game struggled the most. But it’s not a disaster. And to be fair, violently moving the camera in the open world is not how anyone plays Elden Ring. Jumping into the small combat pockets scattered around the open world was more than manageable, since you’re focusing the camera on your enemy, not the crazy-looking castle in the distance. When I encountered monsters like the charming boy seen above, the game also didn’t have the problems I feared. Playing Elden Ring on Switch 2 made me think of Resident Evil 2 on Nintendo 64, which was personally my first experience with the franchise. The N64 version of that game had some improvements over its PlayStation counterpart, but its scenes and backgrounds were heavily compressed to fit on a cartridge rather than discs. It’s generally considered the inferior version of the game, but it’s a perfectly reasonable way to play and when I was young, it was my only option. I didn’t feel like I missed a major element of the Resident Evil 2 experience. If you’re in that boat, perhaps a young or new player who only has a Switch 2 and no other platforms available, and you’re excited to play what some have called the best game ever made (again…subjective), then Elden Ring on Switch 2 will do the job. I think you’ll get the Elden Ring experience here, but with some asterisks. This isn’t a Switch 1 port of a PlayStation 5 game where the frame rate is just a suggestion and everything looks out of focus. Elden Ring on Switch 2 is a much better port than, say, The Outer Worlds on Switch 1. However, if you’re like me and put hundreds of hours into the game on Xbox Series You can read Game Informer Llama’s review of Elden by following the link.
