A year since its shadow drop on PC, PlayStation and Xbox, the Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is now a fully functioning Switch 2 port. Going into this one, there were legitimate, justified concerns about how it would look and play, given how performance problems, traversal stutters and crashes still blight the the other platforms - so how could a less capable system produce more stable performance? The good news is that the port delivers the lion's share of the visual upgrades, but performance is still a problem - exacerbated by the Nintendo hybrid's reduced horsepower.

Positively it does seem that Oblivion Remastered has seen extra attention from Bethesda. A recent statement promises to address other versions with optimisations already built into the Switch 2 build - just what we wanted to hear about this port - while offering a glimmer of hope for an improved turn-out on the other current-gen platforms. Fundamentally though, the big question remains: can a troubled remaster run well on a less capable system?

Going into the game, the Switch 2 version fits into a tidy 58GB install - pleasingly half the size of the PlayStation and Xbox releases. Unique to this version is mouse support via detachable Joy-Cons, a welcome boon for bow targeting and menu navigation. Additionally, Oblivion benefits from a form of Nvidia's DLSS upscaler, which appears to be a more advanced implementation than the TSR used on other consoles.

For docked play, Switch 2 targets a 1080p final frame reconstructed from a native 960x540 resolution. In portable play, visual settings like shadows and textures remain identical, but the final DLSS target drops to 900p, reconstructing from a native 800x450 base. This results in a softening of clarity compared to docked mode.

Switch 2's image holds up well in dungeons and towns where details are close to the camera, sometimes even besting the Xbox Series S in crispness. However, DLSS hits its limit in broad open-world spaces. High-frequency detail on elements like trees struggles with the 540p input, leading to flicker, shimmer on branches, and noise on specular elements like rainy armour. There are also occlusion artifacts and stair-stepping when circling the Imperial City, pushing the technology to its limits.

Visually, many settings trail behind the Xbox Series S. Foliage density is pruned back, and select trees are removed from the map. Draw distances show more aggressive LODs, reining in castle structures and shadows at a distance. While everything materialises correctly as you get closer, the difference at range is noticeable compared to the dedicated home consoles.

Meanwhile, texture quality is typically on par with Series S for road signs and brickwork, though higher presets exist on PS5 and Series X. Curiously, some materials like mud pathways are replaced with different assets on Switch 2, making them harder to distinguish. The most significant hit is to tree shadows, which are reduced from defined leaves to simpler blobs of shade.

On the upside, Lumen reflections and GI make the grade. SSR is used as a fallback at a lower 540p resolution, but the hybrid setup works best. Indirect light bounce is simulated across dungeons and towns, matching Series S in most scenarios, though with slightly less scattering accuracy than Series X. To alleviate CPU strain, decimated animations are used; NPCs at a distance animate at 15fps, which can be a distraction in the open world.

Switch 2 targets a 30fps cap rather than 60fps. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same frame pacing issues found on other consoles, causing camera judder as frame-times flip between 16ms and 50ms. Traversal hitches also remain, with hiccups exceeding 230ms when galloping across terrain or encountering multiple enemies. While full-on several-second hangups are rare, they are a mark against the package and are basically unforgiveable in a modern game.

Regarding the "degrading performance" issue found on PS5 and Xbox where performance gets worse over time, Switch 2 seems to fare better. We found no significant degradation after an hour of play, though this might be because the 30fps cap hides issues that an unlocked 60fps would reveal. We did encounter a camera bug when switching saves and one reproducible crash, but generally, stability has been better than on other platforms.

The hybrid rendering setup remains impressive, running the original Oblivion logic beneath an Unreal Engine 5 layer. This ensures true authenticity to the 2006 original's systems, bugs, and NPC behaviors. While the UE5 eye candy - improved models and Lumen GI - translates well, the technical frustrations like uneven frame-pacing and hitching hold it back. A year later, it's hard to see this as the definitive tribute to a beloved game, but it remains a fascinating technical feat for a handheld.