Switch 2’s free game updates are the gift that Nintendo should keep on giving

While the paid Switch 2 Editions grabbed all the headlines for all the wrong reasons in the run-up to the Nintendo Switch 2’s release, it’s fair to say that Nintendo has actually been far more generous through the rest of its game line-up. Free patches for a bunch of games arrived at launch to add key new features and more native Switch 2 support with improved performance across a bunch of first-party games, both big and small, new and old.

Let’s start at the top of the alphabet with ARMS. This spring-loaded fighting game was a fun diversion that arrived in the early days of the original Switch, and since it already performed very nicely on the console, it’s far from the most obvious candidate for a Switch 2 patch.

And yet here it is, and it’s marvellous. Nintendo has bumped up the native resolution to allow for much higher graphical detail to be revealed – you can really see the weave on Min Min’s beanie, for example, and the background audience is so much sharper and well defined – there’s a bit of support for HDR to let colours pop better on modern TV screens and the built-in display… but there’s also one unexpected improvement.

ARMS now runs at 60fps in 4 player split-screen!

The single-player game already ran at 60fps on Switch 1, but dropped to 30fps for four-player split-screen – it pulls a trick of updating the left side and right side pairing alternately. Now? Switch 2 has four-player split-screen at a lovely 60fps. It’s sublime. When online is going to rarely have players, local multiplayer is where this game will be at its best now.

Another game with a lovely bump to the resolution and frame rates is Splatoon 3. Now all areas of the game are running at 60fps, and while battles were already 60fps on Switch 1, that now means that the city plaza hub area has been bumped up from a 30fps limit to 60fps, giving the whole game that same slick smoothness. There’s also been a pretty hefty resolution bump which seems to be to a native 4K during battles, while the plaza does sacrifice some resolution to get its 60fps. Considering that Nintendo has a historical aversion to anti-aliasing, which has continued through to these patches, it’s a major improvement in clarity that does just look great.

Splatoon 3’s plaza now runs at 60fps on Switch 2 and resolutions have been greatly increased.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is an example that’s just… well, it’s fine. The game has optimised visuals, and there is a jump in resolution, but given the art style, the difference feels minimal. The game was originally a Wii U title, and alongside Captain Toad and Mario 3D World (two games we’ve not tested), Nintendo’s restraint for the original platform already meant that these games look, run and play incredibly well in their original Switch ports. I don’t have Bowser’s Fury, but I understand that this had some performance issues on Switch that Switch 2 has resolved.

NSMBU on Switch 2 is higher res, but the difference feels minimal.

Super Mario Odyssey is another game that already looked pretty fantastic and Nintendo again did a marvellous job optimising the title to perform consistently well. Yet, there were some Kingdoms that really pushed the console rather hard. New Donk City is an obvious example that really suffered from a lowered resolution, dropping from the 900p docked target to 720p to handle this and maintain the all-important 60fps. With no anti-aliasing it made for a really very shimmery image when running around. The Switch 2 update makes this just so much clearer pushing up to around 1700p in New Donk City, around 5x the number of pixels, and capable of higher in less taxing kingdoms and areas. There is still some aliasing shimmer when getting around quickly, but it feels so much better and clearer.

Switch 2 can power Mario Odyssey’s New Donk City to much higher resolutions.

The two chibi-like Zelda games for Switch – that’s the Link’s Awakening remake and Echoes of Wisdom – have also been patched. Though unfortunately we see some mixed results. The game resolution has been bumped up massively, which is lovely, but in docked play, the push for 4K gives Ukuku Prarie, Mabe Village, the beach a drop away from that 60fps target. We’re not sure what’s going on here, because we then compared the swamp area that troubled the Switch 1, and this is now just 60fps on Switch 2. It is… strange, and I double checked to be sure. Thankfully, this seems to disappear when playing in handheld, as the maximum resolution comes down to 1080p.

Link’s Awakening seems less capable of holding 60fps on Switch 2.

By contrast, a little route we ran in Echoes of Wisdom showed great improvement. We could easily drop the frame rate to a V-Sync 30fps through setting lots of fires, summoning lots of creatures, and the like, and this has just been stamped out with a close to locked 60fps.

Echoes of Wisdom is a clear win on Switch 2.

Across a bunch of games where there was co-op previously, there’s now support for GameShare, which streams the game to local and online co-op buddies, and can pull some fantastic tricks to give independent views in games that need it. It works really quite well, though the streams can be a bit compressed and poor WiFi can be an impediment. We tried it with 51 Worldwide Games, but there’s also Big Brain Academy, through to Mario Odyssey, Mario 3D World and Captain Toad. It’s great to see it added, but some of these games also show the restricted access that GameShare is given, being limited to certain games and modes instead of being more freeform like Sony and Valve’s equivalents.

But then we come to the game that is most thoroughly transformed by the Switch 2 patch: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. This game remains in a quite shockingly poor state on original Switch, a real indictment for the work by Game Freak on the series of late, with mediocre visual targets, poor resolutions and strange compromises, all combined with seriously poor performance that’s not befitting of even the underpowered original Switch hardware.

Switch 2 just blasts through all of that, delivering a quite gorgeous looking game that runs at 60fps instead of a poorly paced 30fps…. at best on Switch 1. It looks very clean and crisp on Switch 2, but also seems to be using DLSS upscaling from 1080p when docked to reach that goal – you can see the true resolution after a camera cut, before the temporal anti-aliasing can use that to spruce up following frames. There’s further improvements, so background elements that were at cut frame rates now run smoothly at much greater distances, there’s more Pokémon out and about, and this is generally a huge improvement…. but it’s still well below what the such a huge franchise as Pokémon deserves, there’s still a lot of pop-in, and the base level of the graphics should be much better. Hopefully Pokémon Legends Z-A takes a step forward.

We looked at general backward compatibility last week, and saw some great improvements to steady frame rates and lift dynamic resolutions, but with a dedicated patch, games can clearly go an awful lot further. Honestly, the only games that Nintendo updated that really needed an update for performance here were Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and perhaps Echoes of Wisdom and Link’s Awakening, but Nintendo has shown great value in patching other games from their back catalogue, even ports from the Wii U, boosting resolutions, frame rates in specific modes, and of course, adding GameShare support. It’s great to have these patches across the board, and hope to see many more examples of this, where possible.