On Tuesday, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Anniversary Edition was shadowdropped onto the Nintendo Switch 2. Bethesda promised this port of the classic 2011 open-world RPG was an improvement on the Switch 1 version. And in some ways, that’s true. But players are disappointed by how it runs and feels, and by all the space it takes up.
The original Skyrim on Switch felt like a big deal at the time in 2017. Bethesda getting its ambitious RPG running on Nintendo’s portable hybrid console was wild to see, and it became a solid way to experience Skyrim while on the go. So, when Skyrim made the leap to Switch 2 yesterday, fans were excited to see Bethesda’s aging RPG get a big shot in the arm on the more powerful hardware. And visually, this new version of Skyrim on Switch 2 does look nicer, with many of the enhancements to models and textures found in the other Anniversary Edition ports. So that’s nice!
However, for some reason, this 2011 game, which runs at 60FPS or more on almost every other platform, remains stuck at 30FPS on Switch 2, as if it were 2017 all over again. Across Reddit and social media, fans feel that this 30FPS cap is one of the biggest problems with this new port. As many point out, games like Cyberpunk 2077 run at 40FPS on Switch 2, yet Skyrim is still stuck at 30? Another annoying issue is that Skyrim on Switch 2 seems to have horrendous input lag. Some players are calling it borderline unplayable in handheld mode, and coupled with the 30FPS cap, it adds up to Skyrim on Switch 2 feeling like shit.
And what’s baffling is that this version of Skyrim takes up 53 GB of space on Switch 2. In comparison, the Special Edition version of Skyrim on PC is 12GB. Add the Anniversary Edition DLC upgrade, and it requires approximately 25 GB of space. Meanwhile, on Xbox Series X/S, Skyrim Anniversary Edition has a digital footprint of 32GB. Why the Switch 2 version is this big is unknown, though some speculate it’s a mistake. Others wonder if it has to do with the Switch 2 hardware itself and how Bethesda’s old tech runs on it. Either way, it’s wild to think that Cyberpunk on Switch 2 is only 10GB bigger, at around 60GB, and looks 10 times better and runs at a higher framerate. Something seems off here.
Hopefully, Bethesda does the other thing it’s famous for: patching its broken games and terrible updates to make things more playable. But until then, you might want to hold off on buying Skyrim on Switch 2.
