Hands-on with Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition & Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on Switch 2 Handheld

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At Nintendo’s PAX West 2025 event, Pokemon Legends: Z-A was the primary highlight as the newest RPG, but they also showcased other 3rd-party RPGs destined for the Switch 2. I had a quick glimpse at Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and the Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4. Due to time constraints, I just noted down the highlights from each game and my initial impressions.

Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition (Undocked / Handheld)

To verify if the claims about Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition on Switch were accurate, I decided to check it out myself… and indeed, it’s true. The game struggles to maintain a stable 30fps on the handheld, and performance issues are apparent whether you’re exploring indoor or outdoor settings. However, I did get a glimpse of the two unique starting classes exclusive to the Tarnished Edition: the Idus Knight (or possibly Ides Knight) and the Heavy Knight. A representative from Bandai Namco informed me that the former begins with the Milady greatsword, which was previously available in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Notably, the Tarnished Edition will include this DLC as part of the package.

Experiencing the varying frame rate, roughly between 13-18 frames per second, led me to choose the Heavy Knight character. One of my most intriguing discoveries was when I hastily approached Flying Dragon Agheel out of sheer curiosity about how the Switch 2 would manage that expansive open-world boss in handheld mode. As anticipated, performance drops and lags were evident, but the most amusing moment happened when my ally Agheel took flight to perform its dive attack.

During Agheel’s steep climb, the animations grew noticeably more crude, resembling stop-motion animation due to its significant distance from my character model. This likely meant that the level-of-detail settings were temporarily set to a lower priority load. However, as Agheel descended during its attack, the animations returned to their usual smoothness, with its large model appearing choppy in the air and then becoming smoother again just before impacting the ground.

While it’s undeniably impressive that Elden Ring could potentially run on the Nintendo Switch 2, given its size, there are compromises to consider. For instance, the draw distance might not be as extensive on handheld mode, but it’s still playable in a technical sense. However, performance may vary and the experience might not match that of other platforms. If you’re determined to play Elden Ring on a portable device and can’t or won’t get a Steam Deck, then this could be an eventual possibility. Keep in mind that the release date for Elden Ring on the Switch 2 hasn’t been announced yet, so improvements could potentially be made before launch.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (Undocked / Handheld)

Back in PAX West 2025, Square Enix gave me a sneak peek at the upcoming Switch 2 edition of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. I got to battle it out with the Scorpion Sentinel boss from the start of the game itself. If you’ve experienced the PS4 original, you can expect the Switch 2 performance to be quite similar – running smoothly at around 30fps, give or take a few hiccups here and there. But even during those hectic moments when the Scorpion Sentinel starts ramping up its attacks as the fight progresses, it managed to hold its ground fairly well!

One major issue I encountered was that the text in some of the tutorials on the handheld screen of Switch 2 was quite small, making it difficult for me to decipher certain elements, such as the icon for closing a tutorial pop-up window which turned out to be the + button. In spite of this minor hiccup, the overall demo build for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on Switch 2 was generally well put together, featuring robust speakers that boomed with an impressive boss theme and responsive controls. However, my experience was cut short as the demo ended immediately after climbing the ladder to initiate the escape sequence following the Scorpion Sentinel boss.

Borderlands 4 (Docked / TV)

It’s unclear if it’s appropriate to judge Borderlands 4 on the Switch 2 based on its current state, as the demo shown was quite old, approximately three months prior to PAX West 2025. The representative from 2K cautioned that the build had all four playable characters, but primarily consisted of small combat arenas for an understanding of each character’s gameplay rather than a full representation of the game.

I was curious about how they were making use of the Switch 2 hardware, so I decided to test it out with Vex the Siren. She came pre-equipped with two types of minions thanks to her Dead Ringer skills – a Scepter and a Reaper. The Scepter minion functioned like a turret, as doppelgangers of Vex took up positions to shoot their guns, while the Reaper moved around to deliver melee attacks. Players could summon up to three of these minions in any desired combination.

In the demo version, Vex was armed with multiple firearms and a rocket launcher, which could be considered as a heavy-duty weapon. The game’s construction in this demo wasn’t of top quality; it struggled to maintain 30 frames per second (fps), experiencing frequent drops, stutters, and hitches during intense battles. Due to these performance problems, aiming accurately felt quite challenging. It was apparent that the visual quality, compared to what I saw in the game’s trailers, had taken a significant dip.

I’m not entirely confident that the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 I played provides an accurate representation of the overall experience once it launches, as it was released later on other platforms. Fingers crossed that it improves, given that cross-play is supported and my playtesting only involved a single player. If the Switch 2 version is experiencing issues with just one player, adding four more might lead to problems, especially at this stage.

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2025-09-01 05:46