The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Addresses Nintendo Switch 2 Performance Issues in Latest Update

The Nintendo Switch 2 release of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, which came out back in December, has been facing quite a bit of criticism thanks to several technical issues. Chief among these, as noted by an analysis by Digital Foundry, was severe input lag. While the title has seen an update uncapping its frame rate, the input lag issues still remained. Bethesda has now released a brand new update to address more of these issues.

According to the patch notes, which you can check out below, among the key features coming to the Switch 2 release of Skyrim is a 60 Hz mode in the Display settings, allowing players to switch between “Prioritize Visuals” and “Prioritize Performance”. Picking the former also locks the game at 30 Hz to ensure smooth gameplay. These locked frame rate options will go a long way in ensuring the frame pacing is on track, which should in turn reduce input lag.

Several other improvements have also been made, including fixes for frame rate drops that could happen when the player is at the Talking Stone Camp, the Drelas’ Cottage location, at Secunda’s Kiss, or at Kynesgrove, as well as several crash fixes.

In the meantime, Bethesda has also confirmed that Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition will be coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 on February 24th.

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Nintendo Switch 2 update 1.2 patch notes:

Features:

• Added a 60 Hz mode under Display settings that allows players to toggle between “Prioritize Visuals” or “Prioritize Performance”.
• In addition, frame rate has been locked at 30 Hz in “Prioritize Visuals” mode for smoother gameplay.

Crashes and Performance Fixes:

• Fixed a crash that occurred when reading “The Crimson Dirks Vol. 4” book for the “Tilted Scales” quest in German.
• Fixed an audio-related crash.
• Fixed a crash, infinite load, and game freeze that sometimes occurred when rapidly selecting “Load” multiple times in the pause menu.
• Fixed a crash that occurred when the “Transmute Ore” spell was repeatedly cast outside of the Haltered Stream Camp.

Improved FPS performance drops that occurred in the following locations:

• during the Hide and Seek quest in Kynesgrove
• during combat at Secunda’s Kiss
• when discovering the “Drelas’ Cottage” location
• when engaged in combat with a giant at the Talking Stone Camp.

Visuals Issues Fixes:

• Viewing water planes from a distance or within menus caused them to shift up and down.
• Distant aspen trees appeared with a blue tint.
• Transitioning out of caves caused an outline of the entrance to linger during the fade-to-back loading screen.

User Interface Fixes:

• Switching between mouse and controller mode while in dialogue or the Help menu, caused different options to be highlighted.
• Switching between mouse and controller mode while in help menus or user hints, did not dynamically update callout prompts.
• The “Ready/Sheathe” option was missing from the Joy-Con 2 Mouse Controls menu.
• The “Delete” prompt remained grayed-out within the Load menu when swapping between mouse and controller mode.
• Deleting a save in the Save/Load menus reset the highlighted selection to the top of the menu list.
• While in mouse mode, the cursor remained stuck within a smaller section of the screen when changing between docked/undocked modes or interfacing with GameChat.

Controls Fixes:

• The “Eagle Eye” Archery perk remained active after switching between mouse and controller mode.
• Holding down the Right Joystick while reassigning a button caused that button to disappear from the Controls list.
• The Joy-Con 2 controllers provided haptic feedback while in mouse mode.
• Buttons became unresponsive when controls were remapped while moving the Joy-Con 2 controllers in mouse mode.
• Rotating the map in mouse mode was slower and less smooth than in controller mode.

Audio Issue Fix:

• Scrolling SFX continued to play while holding up or down on the Left Joystick or buttons at the top or bottom of the Save/Load menus.

Localization Fixes:

• “Amiibo” appeared as plural in Spanish.

Miscellaneous:

• Added new translations for the features listed above and UI updates.
• Updates were made to the game credits.