The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will always mark totally different experiences in my mind when it comes to the way in which they released on the original Switch.
Breath of the Wild launched alongside the console, and I was playing it weeks before anyone had held a Switch, so it felt like pure magic to me, without me ever questioning how it looked or performed just because of the sheer fact that I was able to play an open-world game on a handheld that seamlessly transitioned to my TV.
When Tears of the Kingdom rolled around, it was equally impressive for a number of different reasons, but when it came to performance, with a number of other handhelds on the market, it definitely started to show the Switch’s age, to the point that for some reason (I don’t think it was totally down to performance), I only made it about 10 hours in.
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I’m so glad I waited because after playing Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch 2, they both feel like totally new games, and run extremely buttery smooth with higher fidelity graphics than ever before. Not that I’d ever recommended anyone didn’t play these games because of performance issues before, but boy, do they look so much better now.
I was able to play both games in handheld mode on the new 1080/120FPS screen as well as on a TV that I assume was running 4K/60 FPS and both looked absolutely glorious.
Nintendo says that both games are running at enhanced resolution and with increased frame rates, without going into details, but from what I witnessed, thanks to the power of DLSS, they were both running at at least a solid 60 FPS and it looked like it was upscaled very close to 4K if not 4K, but I assume it’s running at some kind of dynamic resolution based on what’s on screen. Every single blade of grass and object within the world now looks sharper with more detail and it just elevates the art in the game to a whole other level.
Everything from running through Hyrule Fields to taking on Guardians to even sorting through your item list felt so much smoother than it ever did on the Nintendo Switch.
There’s now also HDR support on both the handheld display and from the docks, which really helps bring this world to life and give depth to areas such as the sky.
I wasn’t super focused on loading times, but it’s quite a bit faster on the Nintendo Switch 2 thanks to the faster storage, which will definitely be handy when fast travelling or when you die and need to re-load.
Whilst I didn’t get to experience them in-game, there’s other improvements in the way of navigation, voice memories and achievements that will all be available in-app.
Whether all of this will be enough for people to re-play the games, I’m not sure, but if you did fall off either of them, or have shrines and other tasks to complete, at $10-$15 a pop for an upgrade (or free for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass members), I’d highly recommend you jump back in, and if you haven’t played them, you’re in for a massive treat.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Nintendo Switch 2 editions launch alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5th. The author of this article attended the New York City Nintendo Switch 2 experience as a guest of Nintendo.
