New Elden Ring Switch 2 previews show major performance improvement

With the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 last year, several major third-party titles were announced as well with release dates in the same year. While some of them did arrive on time, one in particular is still missing. Elden Ring Tarnished Edition was expected to release in 2025 but was pushed to 2026 due to optimization issues. Now, it looks like the developers have made good progress and the game is running much better than before, though no release date has been announced.

At GDC, FromSoftware allowed publications to experience a 15-minute demo of the game running on the Switch 2. First impressions were that it runs smoothly in both handheld and docked mode, without any blurry textures or major FPS drops. It seems to be running at around 30 FPS to 40 FPS, which is much better than the initial previews at Gamescom 2025. After the initial criticism, the game was delayed to 2026, though no release date was shared.

Of course, it’s going to be very hard to hit the 60 FPS mark due to hardware limitations. However, an earlier report claimed that the performance on the Switch 2 is better than the Steam Deck, which itself isn’t very good at running the game. Moreover, the Switch 2 has a higher resolution display so optimizing the game will require even more dev work.

Now that the game is in a much better place, FromSoftware could share a release date soon. The team developing the game for the handheld has had six months, if not more, to improve the performance and do more tests. There was another preview in September last year that showed progress, and with the latest build, a release date announcement could be imminent.