Elden Ring on Switch 2 is in shambles, Bandai forbids any gameplay capture

Elden Ring on the Nintendo Switch 2 is in such a poor state that Bandai Namco refused to let people capture gameplay of it at Gamescom 2025.

The Nintendo Switch 2 version of FromSoftware's critically acclaimed title Elden Ring is officially called Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition, and the current state of the game is seemingly living up to its name, as reports indicate the port is in a dire state.

Nintendo Life has written that it was among the few able to try out the unreleased title at Gamescom, and speaking to Kotaku, reporter Felix Sanchez said, "It's really bad, and I understand why they don't want you to see this, because wowie zowie, it is terrible. Of course, you're never going to see the light of this-maybe it will just release in that state, but I can't imagine they will do that-It was like playing Ocarina of Time. It was like 20 frames per second, sometimes I was like, 'This has dropped [to] 15 frames per second.'"

Sanchez went on to say he can't imagine the game will release in the state they played it in, as the framerate was dipping to about 20 FPS in some places, and in the worst-case scenarios, down to just 15 FPS. Having such a poorly optimized port of a game is very unusual for FromSoftware, which has typically done a great job at bringing its games over to other platforms.

To further illustrate how poor a state Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition was in, Bandai Namco wasn't even allowing play testers to capture any footage of the title at the event, according to the report. If that is true, it makes me wonder why they would even show the game off in the first place?

Lastly, some people are saying this may be a fault of the Nintendo Switch 2 system. That simply isn't the case, as the Switch 2 is capable of running Cyberpunk 2077 at a smooth framerate, and that game is more demanding on system hardware than Elden Ring.