Elden Ring on Switch 2: The Reviews Are In, and 30 FPS Is the Whole Argument

Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition arrives on Switch 2 this Friday, August 28, and the reviews landed today. The short version: it is a genuinely impressive port, and you will need to make peace with 30 FPS.

That is the practical question if you already own this game somewhere else, so let’s deal with it first.

What 30 FPS costs you in the boss fights

Eurogamer’s hands-on is the most useful read here, because it goes past the number and into what it changes. The reviewer describes adjusting their timing — dodging slightly earlier than usual, charging heavy attacks a beat further ahead, and says that by the time they had beaten Margit and Godrick, the frame rate had stopped being the thing they were thinking about.

Where it bit was the Red Wolf of Radagon, the agile lunging boss in Liurnia that most players hit third. Fast, erratic bosses are exactly where 30 FPS stops being an aesthetic preference and starts being a reaction-time problem.

The open question everyone is circling is Promised Consort Radahn, the final boss of Shadow of the Erdtree, which punishes hardware as much as it punishes players. Nobody reviewing this has published a verdict on that fight yet.

What Tarnished Edition adds

It is not a straight port. Tarnished Edition brings two new starting classes, new armour sets and a Torrent cosmetic, on top of the base game and Shadow of the Erdtree.

If you are in Aotearoa or Australia and buying physical, check the box before you commit: this is a game-key card, so the cartridge is a licence rather than the game data. You will be downloading it either way, and you will need the storage free.

So is it worth it?

Here at ShaneTheGamer we think the answer depends entirely on whether this would be your first playthrough or your fourth. If you have never been to the Lands Between, a portable version that holds 30 FPS is a remarkable way to spend the next hundred hours and the compromise will never register, because you have nothing to compare it against.

If you have already finished it on PS5 at 60, you are buying portability and paying for it in reaction time. That is a real trade, not a bad one, but go in knowing which of the two you are.