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Digital Foundry has posted its tech review for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered on the Switch 2, detailing how Bethesda and Virtuos’ work holds up on Nintendo’s console a little over a year after its initial release.
In a nutshell, Oblivion looks pretty good on the Switch 2, delivering most of the upgrades seen on other platforms. The problem, however, lies with the performance. Oblivion still struggles on the likes of PS5 and Xbox Series X|S with frame rate hitches and crashes, and this is very much present on Switch 2 – in fact, DF says that its issues are exacerbated by the console’s reduced horsepower. Yeesh.
In terms of image quality, you’re looking at 1080p docked and 900p handheld thanks to the use of DLSS. Visuals are said to be impressive, even exceeding those found on the Xbox Series S. On the flip side, foliage density is scaled back quite a bit, with entire trees missing from the overworld. Many assets at lengthy distances pop in and out depending on your proximity.
In terms of performance, Switch 2 targets 30fps but suffers from frame pacing issues, with the camera hitching frequently as frame-times flip between 16ms and 50ms. An issue seen on PS5 and Series X in which performance degrades over time doesn’t seem to be present here, and this is likely due to the 30fps cap rather than an unlocked 60fps.
Similarly, overall stability seems to be better than other platforms, though we’ve seen a couple of crashes ourselves since launch, so it’s hardly ideal.
Given that Bethesda has successfully compressed Oblivion enough to fit the entire game onto a Switch 2 cartridge, it is impressive that it’s so visually comparable to beefier hardware. That said, a lot of issues remain, and we’re hopeful that a few patches are implemented in the future to smooth things out.