The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Anniversary Edition Switch 2 Review

After 14 years of Skyrimming – I’ll let you decide if that’s a verb or not – and almost countless ports and rereleases stemming all the way back to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, you would have to imagine that we’d have had enough of Bethesda’s iconic Elder Scrolls entry. And yet… here’s the Nintendo Switch 2 is a brand-new console with brand-new innards that are begging to have a native port. Sure, you could play the original Switch version of Skyrim on Switch 2, but isn’t that missing the point of having a shiny new handheld? Which would explain why I’ve just logged onto the eShop and bought Skyrim. Again. Let’s not think too hard about how many times that is.

Here’s the good news. If you own the original Switch version of Skyrim, you get a healthy 66% off the Switch 2 Anniversary Edition – bringing it down to £18 in the UK, or your regional equivalent. The even better news is that if you already have the Anniversary Edition of Skyrim on Switch, the Switch 2 version is an entirely free upgrade. Which seems suspiciously fair. However, if you own neither of the older versions, this new edition of a 14-year-old game is a wallet-crumbling £60, which might have you saying rather more than Fus Ro Dah.

The original release of Skyrim on Nintendo Switch was hugely impressive when it first arrived. Skyrim is a massive game, and being able to take it on the go just felt incredible. It had obviously been Switch-ified, with lower resolutions and textures compared to PS4, but that didn’t diminish the quality of the game itself. That said, it didn’t stop Switch owners pining for the performance and graphical improvements that were trotted out on the bigger consoles.

If anything, the Anniversary Edition that arrived on Switch in 2022 made the game worse, at least in terms of performance, but it added a host of new DLC and features that fleshed the game out further. The arrival of the Switch 2 Edition then should signal the ultimate Switch experience for Bethesda’s classic, but while it looks pretty good, this really isn’t making the most of Nintendo’s new hardware.

Key to that disappointment is the frame rate. The Switch 2 version of the Skyrim Anniversary Edition still runs at 30fps. It’s a mostly stable 30fps, with the occasional wobble, but at this point you’d hope to see 60fps or even just 40fps for such an old game – as a contemporary, Red Dead Redemption’s Switch 2 port is able to handle 60fps just fine, for example. No, admittedly, the PS4 is a general benchmark for Switch 2 ports, and the Anniversary Edition also ran at 30fps on that machine. Bethesda aren’t known for their optimisation chops, particularly when it comes to this game.

What’s potentially more damning is the clear and obvious input lag that’s currently in play. There’s a distinct lack of immediacy to your movements, and a weird disconnect between the analogue sticks and your character reacting. Thanks to the style and pacing of Skyrim’s action, this is something that I’ve managed to get used to – Skyrim’s combat is fairly straightforward, and let’s not forget how wonky the original PS3 version would get. Bethesda were, at least, quick to patch issues with the Switch 1 version of Anniversary Edition, so I’d expect the same here to address this issue, but it is still a bizarre oversight for a new port

Image quality does, however, take a big step up here. Everything is far sharper and crisper than in the original Switch version, which definitely ran towards the softer, fuzzier end of the spectrum. It instantly makes the game feel more modern and immediate, while the strength of the original art direction is given more room to breathe.

The character models and facial animations remain clearly of their time – there’s little of the improvements seen in the recent Oblivion remaster, for example – but it’s in the landscapes and the lighting that the improvements are clearest. Sunlight dapples through the fuller, more realistic trees, textures are higher resolution, while ground geometry and foliage are more detailed and vibrant. Does that excuse a 53GB install size, though? Not even close, and it’s quite inexplicable why this game is more than double the size of the game on PC or PS5.

This is still Skyrim, and that means all of the joys and all of the jank. You can genuinely look to a distant peak and head there, sloughing through snow drifts and grinding your way to the top, or you can set up a homestead in an attractive town and just spend hours upon end hunting and exploring. Through that, you’ll get stuck on rocks, swing your sword through the air with no effect, see unbelievable things happen with the physics, listen to characters infinitely repeating lines or just inexplicably fall down and die. Somehow, those sorts of things have never seemed to matter too much to Skyrim, and that doesn’t change on the Switch 2.

There’s still the immense sense of epic drama and the tantalising atmosphere of adventure, as well as all the silly asides and cast-off missives that’ll make you chuckle. There’s hundreds of hours of content, some of the best quests in gaming, and those classic moments that launched a million memes. I can’t help but be continually drawn in by Skyrim, no matter how many times I play it, and while this is far from the best version of the game – something that’s exceedingly annoying on new hardware in 2025 – this is still one of the greatest games ever made.