by Xbox first-party title The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has finally made its way on the Nintendo Switch 2, and we've been very curious to see how it would fare on the system compared to the Xbox Series S.
Good news - the folks over at Digital Foundry have been analysing the two versions as part of their review, revealing that the Xbox Series S version still generally takes the crown due to mostly higher-quality visuals along with performance issues that still exist in the new Switch 2 port.
In terms of graphics, the outlet says that the Switch 2 looks great in some areas, even "besting the Xbox Series S in crispness" at times when it comes to "dungeons and towns where details are close to the camera". Texture quality is also on par for some things but downgraded for others on the Nintendo console, while additional visual settings are also said to have been pared back compared to the Series S.
"Visually, many settings trail behind the Xbox Series S. Foliage density is pruned back, and select trees are removed from the map. Draw distances show more aggressive LODs, reining in castle structures and shadows at a distance. While everything materialises correctly as you get closer, the difference at range is noticeable compared to the dedicated home consoles."
"On the upside, Lumen reflections and GI make the grade. SSR is used as a fallback at a lower 540p resolution, but the hybrid setup works best. Indirect light bounce is simulated across dungeons and towns, matching Series S in most scenarios, though with slightly less scattering accuracy than Series X."
Much has been said about the performance of Oblivion Remastered on other systems, with Digital Foundry highlighting the issues for Xbox and PS5 in the past, and the Switch 2 unfortunately suffers with similar problems as well.
Frame pacing issues that cause camera judder are still present, while traversal hitches are apparently more prominent in this release too - mostly when galloping across terrain or encountering lots of enemies at once.
However, there's a notable benefit here in regards to the degrading performance issue on Xbox and PS5, as Digital Foundry found "no significant degredation" in the Switch 2 version compared to their experiences on other consoles.
"Regarding the "degrading performance" issue found on PS5 and Xbox where performance gets worse over time, Switch 2 seems to fare better. We found no significant degradation after an hour of play, though this might be because the 30fps cap hides issues that an unlocked 60fps would reveal. We did encounter a camera bug when switching saves and one reproducible crash, but generally, stability has been better than on other platforms."
While a lot of this might sound very negative, it should be pointed out that Digital Foundry takes a hyper-technical look at these kinds of things, and they actually conclude that they're still impressed by what Bethesda was able to pull off on the Nintendo Switch 2.
They highlight that it "remains a fascinating technical feat for a handheld" even if it's not "the definitive tribute to a beloved game", while also acknowledging other plus points such as the small install size, mouse support, a more advanced implementation of upscaling, and the impressive use of Lumen reflections and GI.
We'll have to wait and see what happens next, as Bethesda recently teased that more updates could be coming to both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions of Oblivion Remastered, hopefully improving the performance further. Stay tuned on that - we'll let you know if and when anything gets announced.