How does ‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom run on Switch?

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is finally here, arriving to universal critical praise and a monster wave of hype. Players all around the world are now exploring the vast open world of Hyrule, which is as brimming with content as we’d expect from a Breath of the Wild sequel.

There’s only one fly in the ointment. The Nintendo Switch is now six years old and even on its original release was an underpowered system. Back in 2017 it was less powerful than the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and is now leagues behind what the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X can do. For years fans have grumbled that Nintendo has refused to update the guts of their hardware and current indications are we won’t see a Switch 2 until late 2024 at the earliest.

So, how does the ambitious open world of Tears of the Kingdom run on Switch?

Breath of the Wild aimed for 30 FPS and a 900p resolution target in docked and 720p in handheld mode. Dynamic resolution scaling was present, though by and large the 2017 release hit its targets and didn’t need to drop the resolution too often. Some areas, notably heavily forested regions and busy villages, saw heavy frame-rate drops, though later patches improved the game’s performance.

Tears of the Kingdom runs on an evolution of the Breath of the Wild engine and aims for the same target resolutions and frame rates. After spending so much time developing for the Switch, Nintendo has an excellent grasp of how to optimize games for the system, though the infamously rough release of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet raised fears that Tears of the Kingdom may push the system too far.

After combing through gameplay footage, and as verified by the folks at Digital Foundry, if you can handle the performance of Breath of the