Digital Extremes on Warframe Switch 2: DLSS Was “Very Important”, Renders as Low as 540p to Reach 60 FPS

In late March, Digital Extremes released a version of Warframe natively optimized for the Nintendo Switch 2 console. The studio hailed it as a major improvement over the Switch version, not to mention a significant milestone: it meant the long-running free-to-play action game is now available on all the major gaming platforms. The Android version had launched in February, and the game was already available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and iOS.

Wccftech sent a few questions to Digital Extremes about the development of the Nintendo Switch 2 version and its features, such as improved FPS, resolution, load times, textures, and shader quality, as well as NVIDIA DLSS and Joy-Con 2 mouse control support. The answers were provided by Director of Community and Live Operations Megan Everett.

How long did it take you to prepare the Switch 2 version of your game?

We began work on Switch 2 development as soon as we were able to get our hands on development kits from Nintendo. I believe we received those sometime in early Fall 2025, and with our excellent foundation of Warframe on the original Nintendo Switch, it took us around 6 to 7 months to get a build out to players we were confident in. As a live service game, though, we’re still working on polishing that experience with each new update for Warframe.

What individual aspect of the Switch 2 hardware do you find most improved compared to the previous Switch?

It’s hard to pick one individual aspect of the Switch 2 hardware that is most improved for Warframe, because almost everything about this new platform has seen overall improvements, including frame rate, loading times, textures, rendering, and more. All of these things combined elevate the Warframe experience on the player end significantly and improve the way the game looks and feels.

I noticed that you support NVIDIA DLSS. How important was its presence to reaching your intended target and performance goals?

DLSS was very important. It allows us to render the game at a lower resolution internally (as low as 540p) without the final image looking overly blurry. Lowering the internal resolution gives more breathing room for the GPU to hit its frame rate target of 60 FPS. DLSS also cleans up a lot of the flickering that you may experience in certain situations. Having more options for performance-heavy scenarios is never a bad thing!

What do you think of the Joy-Con 2 mouse support? Does the team prefer playing Warframe with the regular controller or with this mode turned on?

For us as developers, providing our community with the most agency in how they play and engage with Warframe is paramount. Discovery is fun, and giving players the tools and resources to play how they want is super critical to our relationship with the community. Perhaps a player didn’t know how much they loved the UI and controls of Warframe for Mobile and happened to discover their preferred playstyle when we released iOS or Android, or perhaps they prefer to play on the go in handheld with Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch, with the ability to dock and undock at any time. Choice is important.

We don’t like to dictate a preference in how you play Warframe; each person has a unique experience. The same mentality goes for everyone on our team. With that said, the Joy-Con 2 mouse support is very fun and cool to see on a platform like Nintendo Switch 2 that brings the experience a smidge closer to playing on PC, and we do hope players who engage with this feature enjoy it and provide us with any feedback on functionality so we may continue to improve.

The game supports PSSR 1.0 on PlayStation 5 Pro, but Sony has now released a new version of PSSR. Are you going to introduce it yourself with official support, as some developers have been doing, or are you simply fine with players using the system-wide toggle?

The short answer is that we are keeping it to a system-wide toggle!

Warframe is now one of the few games that actually support every modern platform. How hard is it to produce new content and ensure it works seamlessly across PC, all consoles, and mobile?

Cross-Platform Play and Save was a huge effort for us to get off the ground, and we were so excited to release it in 2023. I would say it was much more difficult back then, but we’ve gotten so much better at our internal processes and scheduling that it definitely isn’t an “easy” task, but we are far more confident in our capabilities now than we were when we were attempting to piece that architecture together in the beginning. We now have dedicated teams in QA and live operations who are paramount to ensuring we are aligned when it comes to cert with partners, testing, and shipping builds out to players. It’s tricky to answer this question as directly as I think you’d like me to – it certainly isn’t easy, and it’s very much a challenging process, and we’ll only continue to get better and more efficient with each update we ship.

One of the hottest topics among artists and engineers throughout March has been the reveal of NVIDIA DLSS 5, which drew polarized responses: some loved it, others hated it. What's your early take on this new technology?

We don’t have much of an opinion to share on DLSS 5. It’s nice to have a little giggle over some of the memes, but at the end of the day, we’ll see how things shake out!

Thank you for your time.

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