In April 2025, Bethesda and Xbox Game Studios launched The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. With a few quality-of-life adjustments and a fresh Unreal Engine 5 coat of paint over the entire game, we saw a glimpse of a new kind of remaster. While modern elements were incorporated into the game’s look, plenty of jank remained from 2006. Twenty years later, the game is playable on a Nintendo console; something that felt impossible at one time. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered for Switch 2 is a great addition to the young console’s library, but as of now, poor optimization makes it feel like a deficient way to play this iconic game.

Rather than rehash the game itself to start, which you can explore plenty in our The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered PC review, let’s talk Switch 2 performance. When docked, the game runs at 1080p, and reduces to 900p in handheld mode. For both, I have no issues with the resolution while playing the game. DLSS is supported for both docked and handheld play, and I think both utilize the feature well. Frame rate is another story.

Bethesda indicated in the initial announcement that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered on Switch 2 would target 30 FPS. In many scenes and spaces, this is achievable. For example, Arena fights and much of the game’s opening run at around 30 FPS just fine. Even in the early game, however, this is not the case in open areas or busy towns or districts. The Market District of Imperial City, for example, would often show characters in the distance moving at what looked to be sub-10 FPS. I’m on record for my reviews as not being a frames-per-second purist, but it’s distracting in both handheld and docked modes when this happens.

Having put about 60 hours into the game on Xbox, I can say the difference is incredibly noticeable. Bethesda ports have been known to address a lot of these performance issues over time, but as of now, it’s definitely a knock against going the Nintendo route if you have other options to play Oblivion Remastered. Now, if you’re a Switch 2 owner and don’t have any other consoles or a gaming PC, is this worth it? As of right now, I’d say it’s better to wait until some of this gets fleshed out in patches.

It hurts me to admit it too, because this is one of my favorite games of all time. I want as many people as possible to experience this story and world. I also have no doubt we’ll get to a point where it runs well on the Switch 2. Nobody is asking for it to run like a PS5 Pro. I’m not even disappointed that things like items falling from the sky when you enter a room aren’t fixed after twenty years. It’s part of the charm of Oblivion. My issue is that in many instances, the frame rate drops are so intense that it feels like your game is literally bugging out.

Many have shared online that crashes are a big issue as well. I’ve had a few, but let me say this. When threads online are insisting that players do things like turn off auto-save to help cut down on game crashes, that’s where you lose me. Don’t ship a game where that’s even on the table. A little bit more time in the oven and this could have launched beautifully. It’s incredible that the game is fully loaded on the physical cart as well, helping many feel inspired to purchase the physical edition to support this effort by Bethesda and Xbox.

With patches, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered will shape up just fine if history repeats itself. The fidelity of the game, along with its iconic quests and story, is going to make this a must-play for the Switch 2. As of now, however, it’s just not in a shape that makes me feel like its current state lives up to how iconic this game is. For now, the review score for this game is simply due to its poor optimization at launch. The game itself is still a 9 or 10 in my eyes. That’s the exact reason its current performance on Switch 2 hurts me so badly.

A Nintendo Switch 2 review copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered was provided by Bethesda for the purposes of this review.

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

$49.99

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• DLSS and visual fidelity look great in handheld and docked

Cons

• At launch, frame rate and performance are incredibly distracting
• Game crashes are frequent when a lot is happening on-screen or changing environments
• Terrible "solutions" to the many bugs