When the Nintendo Switch 2 was revealed, it was confirmed that not only were Nintendo dropping paid Nintendo Switch 2 updates for certain games, it was also revealed that a handful of 10+ OG Switch games would get free updates too.
Due to the nature in which they were announced, and the fact that they’re free, it was assumed that maybe these wouldn’t be a massive update, but Digital Foundry has released its testing and for the most part, it’s claimed that these are all remasters (in everything but the name).
We also published our own quick and dirty impressions of each of the games earlier here, but the report from DF goes far deeper into the specs and technical improvements.
DF has called The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom the biggest of the improvements. Whilst both games ran at incredibly unstable frame rates on the Switch 1, they now run at 60 FPS locked on the Switch 2 and the resolution has also increased from 720p to 1620p in docked mode and 600p to 1080p in handheld mode.
One that I’ve spent a lot of time with is Super Mario Odyssey and DF calls this out as one that is worth revisiting. The game holds its 60 FPS gameplay, but it has had a 4x resolution increase with 1800p docked which looks fantastic on a 4K display, and the game now runs at a native 1080p in handheld mode as well.
An update that was released after the Switch 2 launched is Splatoon 3, and this one sees a huge jump from 1080p to 4K in addition to a bump to 60 FPS and in handheld, once again it now reaches the native resolution of the display at 1080p.
Other games such as Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and New Super Mario Bros U are called out as being improved, but not in a way that is as noticeable as the other games due to their art style or only minor resolution and frame rate improvements.
Without doubt, these upgrades are just a taste of what we can expect with upcoming games such as Donkey Kong Bananza and Metroid Prime 4, which will no doubt look better than anything we’ve ever witnessed from Nintendo in the past.
