ⓘ Digital Foundry

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered finally arrived on the Nintendo Switch 2 nearly sixteen months after the surprising shadow-drop across all platforms, and with it came some bumpy traversal stutters.

According to a deep dive by Digital Foundry’s Thomas Morgan, who re-tested Oblivion Remastered on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and the new Nintendo Switch 2 port, he was rather surprised to discover that the handheld held up on its own in one respect but not in other aspects. His commentary during one particular screenshot was notable: “Drops to 0 FPS have no place in a modern video game.”

Oblivion Remastered on the Nintendo Switch 2 is capped at a relatively solid 30 FPS, and that cap is hiding something. When docked on the Switch 2, Oblivion Remastered outputs at 1080p, upscaled from a native 960x540, which is one-quarter of the pixel count. Handheld mode uses the same ratio, outputting an upscaled 900p image from 800x450.

The visual fidelity holds up well indoors, where Morgan found the image quality looked sharper and more detailed than on the Xbox Series S. However, when it comes to highly detailed objects, branches start shimmering, wet armor shows specular noise, and occasional occlusion artifacts appear when doing rounds of the Imperial City.

What really makes this port of Oblivion Remastered frustrating for the masses is the frame pacing on the Nintendo Switch 2. While the average frame rate stays at a 30 FPS cap on a 60 Hz panel, each frame should hold for two refreshes, i.e., 33 ms. Morgan’s frame-time measurements bounced between 16 ms and 50 ms, i.e., one refresh and then three.

While the average rests around 30, the motion doesn’t. Furthermore, traversal is quite cumbersome on the Switch 2 port, as Digital Foundry found hitches of 230 ms when galloping or when numerous enemies popped up on the screen at once, while distant enemies animated at 15 FPS to give the CPU some breathing room.

However, none of these problems are new, as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered runs on ancient Gamebryo logic beneath an Unreal Engine 5 rendering layer, which hasn’t been optimized or updated since April 2025. The in-game stutter is inherited, not new.

Still, Oblivion Remastered stands roughly where it did in April 2025, except it’s now portable on the Nintendo Switch 2, and Cyrodiil now fits in 58 GB and travels anywhere you go. The only genuinely exciting feature is mouse mode, which you can enable under Gameplay settings.

Despite its limitations, being one of the most iconic games of its time weighs heavily in its favor, and it dips in and out of stock on Amazon despite a mammoth $59.99 ask for a game now over two decades old. Digital Foundry's testing suggests users might find it frustrating even if they take the plunge, but plenty of users are still happy to go for it, making it a scalper's paradise on eBay.

Rahim Amir Noorali - Tech Writer - 1061 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2025

I am a UAE-based tech writer who likes to build and benchmark PCs both professionally and as a hobby. I contribute to multiple tech publications, including TechRadar and Notebookcheck, as well as Game Rant, where I focus primarily on news, commerce, and buying guides. When I'm not scouring the internet for the latest in tech stories, you will find me playing a game of Civilization or DotA with friends and frenemies alike while dropping recommendations for Apple TV+'s Foundation to everyone I come across.