The widely reported Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition performance issues on Nintendo Switch 2 may be caused by CPU limitations, according to an early analysis of the upcoming port.
In the latest episode of their weekly podcast, the tech experts at Digital Foundry discussed two of the most anticipated ports coming to the console before the end of the year, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition, which were both available to test during last week's Gamescom 2025, highlighting how they basically sit at the opposite sides of the specturm, in terms of quality. The port of the Square Enix game is among the best-looking games seen on the system to date, sporting visuals above the original PlayStation 4 version, stable 30 FPS performance, and excellent image quality, which matches the console's 1080p screen, possibly using NVIDIA DLSS.
On the other hand, Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition fares considerably worse. As widely reported, the port runs terribly in its current state, often falling way below the 30 FPS cap to deliver a very unpleasant experience. While this really sounds baffling, considering the game can be made to run reasonably well on the Steam Deck, Digital Foundry highlights how there could be some reasons to justify the port's current state, such as it being the first ARM conversion of the engine powering the game. The main culprit for the port's horrible performance, however, is likely CPU limitations, as the original Elden Ring is a heavy game that struggles to run smoothly on many system configurations, and the slower the CPU, the worse the performance is. In a recent analysis of the Cyberpunk 2077 port, Digital Foundry highlighted how the Nintendo Switch 2 CPU is slower than the Steam Deck's, so the port needed some additional tweaking to compensate for this limitation. Still, as the game is still being worked on, there's the chance performance could be improved in the final release, and it definitely should, as the game is definitely in a bad state, unfit for release.
It would be a shame for Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition to release in a bad state on Nintendo Switch 2, as the open-world action role-playing game by FromSoftware is a game that deserves to be experienced by all soulslike fans. You can learn more about what makes it one of the Japanese studio's best games to date in my review of the PC version.
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