While the original release of Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch looked impressive, the comparison with its performance on the Switch 2 reveals a remarkable upgrade. It’s akin to looking back at old photos from middle school and being grateful to have moved past braces—this improvement is truly striking, even catching some Nintendo executives off guard.
Nate Bihldorff, senior vice president of product development at Nintendo of America, shared insights indicating as much during a recent interview with Nintendo Life. When questioned about any frame rate issues encountered in Breath of the Wild or its successor, Tears of the Kingdom, on the Switch 2, he stated, “I haven’t, to be honest.”
Bihldorff elaborated, saying, “Believe me, the first thing I did when I booted up the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Breath of the Wild is, I went to the Korok Forest, because I knew the area previously had been the heaviest processing load.”
During his exploration of the Korok Forest, he noticed, “And as I walked around, all this foliage is finally being able to get rendered.” He expressed his amazement at the original Switch’s ability to run such a demanding game like Breath of the Wild, recognizing that it was “absolute wizardry.” However, he also admitted that “there’s no question that [the Korok Forest] was the area that saw the biggest performance hit” on the first-generation Switch. On the Switch 2, he confirmed, “I saw no dips” in performance regarding Breath of the Wild.
Bihldorff offered a cautionary note, stating, “I will say, nothing’s perfect,” particularly regarding Tears of the Kingdom. He mentioned, “The amount of stuff that you can do in that game is impossible to predict because of the access they’ve given you to building things.”
In discussing Nintendo’s soon-to-be-released console, he candidly recognized, “there probably are still gonna be ways that you can go beyond the stress of the system. But I haven’t found any.”
I wildly underestimated the Switch 2, and after just getting a Steam Deck, I’m almost regretting it.