Playing the Xenoblade Chronicles series on Nintendo Switch 2 seems to be the way to enjoy Monolith Soft's excellent RPGs at their best, but the system's backward compatibility feature's image quality and performance improvements are still not enough to make them truly shine.
A new analysis shared by Nintendo World Report on YouTube takes a look at how all the entries in the series run on Nintendo Swicth 2, starting with Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition, the game that runs the best on the original Switch. On the new generation system, the remaster of the Wii U entry in the series maxes out the dynamic resolution range seen on the Switch, running at locked 1080p and 720p resolutions in docked and handheld modes, respectively, with solid image quality.
Things are much different in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. While the second entry in the series remains one of the most impressive Switch games ever, thanks to its advanced visual features like high quality character models and post-processing and the volumetric sea of clouds, these features came at a heavy cost in terms of resolution and framerate, which are very low on the original Switch. On Nintendo Switch 2, the game fares a little better, as it runs at locked 720p and 576p resolutions, the maximum possible resolution in the game's dynamic resolution ranges, in docked and handheld modes, but still with the same TAA solution and sharpening filter, which heavily impact image quality. The game's expansion fares a little better thanks to the less aggressive sharpening filter, but resolutions remain low. Performance, at least, becomes more solid with a locked 30 FPS framerate. Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 fares not too differently from its sequel, with locked 720p and 576p resolutions, and slightly better image quality thanks to the absence of the infamous sharpening filter.,
Better tailored to the capabilities of the original Nintendo Switch, Xenoblade Chronicles 3's image quality was considerably better than its predecessor's, also thanks to improved temporal upscaling. On Nintendo Switch 2, the third entry in the series runs at docked 720p resolution, but only at 480p resolution in handheld mode, which makes sense considering how this resolution scaled to 720p and 1080p, but ends up making the game's handheld mode on Switch 2 the worst out of all entries in the series.
While even these minor improvements are welcome, there's no denying that dedicated Nintendo Switch 2 patches would be quite welcome to make the Xenoblade Chronicles series shine on the system. Thankfully, all three games will receive significant improvements in the Nintendo Switch 2 Editions launching in the second half of 2026.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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