The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Open-World First-Person Action-RPG
Players: 1
Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: ZeniMax Media Inc
The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference
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Review:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an Open-World Action-RPG that represents two major firsts for the series – it is the first mainline Elder Scrolls game released on a handheld system, and it is the first Elder Scrolls game to see release on a Nintendo platform. Given that this game has been the recipient of countless “best of” awards, its arrival on the Switch was heralded as a major event, even with the game being over half a decade old by the time of release, and I would argue that this hype was for a good reason.
At the moment of this writing, Skyrim is over eight years old now, and even now it’s still quite an accomplishment. This massive, detailed world still arguably sets the high water-mark for the Open-World genre in numerous ways, although The Witcher III and Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild both give it a run for its money. This is a game where players were given an unprecedented level of freedom, the ability to approach the world however they wanted.
Do you want to take on the quest to fight the king of the dragons and stop the end of the world? Want to take sides in the civil war and lead your side to victory? Want to break into peoples’ homes and steal stuff? Want to look through the local caves for treasure? Want to build a house and settle down with a family? Want to explore the world? This is a game that presents players with a wealth of options to choose how they want to play it, in a way most games can only dream of.
What’s more, each of these is not only a valid pursuit, but offers a wealth of great gameplay. One possible path for players to take is to join the Thieves’ Guild, which involves a great deal of sneaking and thievery, as you might imagine. And I would argue that this game is a contender for the greatest stealth game ever made… and that’s only a tiny fraction of what it has to offer.
Skyrim’s story is about as epic as epic gets. Players find themselves as a condemned prisoner caught up in a civil war – the nation-state of Skyrim is being torn apart by two factions who both lay claim not only to Skyrim’s rule, but to its way of life. As you are being sent to the chopping block for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, your execution is halted by the arrival of Alduin, the king of the dragons and herald of a fiery apocalypse. Despite The Elder Scrolls being a long-running series, dragons have never been a “thing” in the series, believed by the elves and men of Skyrim to be myth. However, now that they’re back with a vengeance, various parties scramble to decide how to respond to this new development amidst the still-raging war. In the meantime, the player will soon find that they are apparently the Dragonborn, a warrior with the rare ability to use their voice for magical “shouts”, and the only one capable of truly stopping Alduin’s purpose of ending the world.
What’s so great about this game’s story isn’t just its epic nature, but also the detail, as the lore fills every book, and the world is filled with hundreds of various unique characters who each have their own small role to play, and all of them with completely voiced dialogue (although yes, there are also soldiers that are a dime a dozen and all mock you for losing your sweet-roll or talk wistfully about taking an arrow to the knee – this game spawned numerous memes).
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that this is a massive game with an epic story, and truly open-ended gameplay that is still to this day one of the greatest games of all time.
When Skyrim was first released, it was a graphical marvel, without a doubt the greatest-looking game of all time, with a truly epic soundtrack and full voice acting for every character in the game (albeit with a small cast of voice actors being used repeatedly throughout the game). However, after all these years have passed, it does still look very good, but it’s not as impressive as it once was. Running at a solid 720p and 30fps on the Switch, this game looks fantastic, especially in handheld mode, but its character models now look a bit chunky, and the level of detail isn’t quite as impressive as it once was. It doesn’t help that this version of the game doesn’t benefit from the graphical upgrades added to Skyrim: Legendary Edition, but at the very least it runs steady and stable here.
Well… as stable as Skyrim ever did, at any rate – this game has always been notoriously buggy (especially in its physics engine and AI), and while the Switch version doesn’t fare notably worse than other versions in this regard, it doesn’t fare particularly better, either.
The other big feature that other versions of the game have and the Nintendo Switch version lacks is mod support, added to the other console versions of the game with Skyrim: Legendary Edition, but not this version of the game. Players will have to content themselves with the game as it was originally sold, along with all of the expansion content released for the game by Bethesda. Given that this represents potentially thousands of hours of gameplay, that’s a fair bit more than just some consolation prize.
The Nintendo Switch version does have a few extra features to boast. This version of the game adds Amiibo support, and players can unlock equipment from the Zelda series to make their Dragonborn look particularly silly (hey, I’m not complaining, it’s great that it’s in here, but Link’s outfit’s bright colors don’t really mesh with Skyrim’s grungy more realistic world). The game also adds support for HD rumble and motion-controls. The latter is for the most part pretty gimmicky, but allowing players to aim a bow with gyroscopic aiming is actually a pretty damn nice addition to the gameplay, and one of the best features of the Switch version of the game. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any touchscreen controls in handheld mode.
To get Skyrim running on a Nintendo handheld is in and of itself pretty damn spectacular. For the Switch to do it so well is even better, even if this version doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of other versions of the game (though to be fair, it does add a few bells and whistles of its own). In any case, if you haven’t already gotten this game on some other platform, you absolutely do need to get it – it is one of the best games of the last decade, no question. And if you do already have it elsewhere, you might just find that the ability to take the game on the go may very well be worth heading back into Skyrim again.
tl;dr – Skyrim is an Open-World Action-RPG that gives players a huge, detailed world with an epic storyline, and lets them decide what they want to do in that world. It plays surprisingly smoothly on the Switch, although it lacks the graphical upgrades and mod support of other versions. On the other hand, this version of the game includes all of the expansions to the game, and adds in a few unique features of its own, such as gyroscopic aiming. On the whole, this is a surprisingly good release of one of the greatest videogames of all-time, and players who don’t yet own it should consider it a must-buy. Even if you do already own it, the ability to take it on the go might just be enough to convince you to buy it again.
Grade: A++
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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Open-World First-Person Action-RPG
Players: 1
Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: ZeniMax Media Inc
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Review:
As I write this, The Elder Scrolls is now 14 years old, has been ported to countless platforms, and re-released numerous times. And in some ways, Skyrim has aged quite well – this is still one of my favorite games of all-time, and to this day no one has managed to make anything else quite like it, not even Bethesda themselves. However, in other ways, Skyrim is really starting to show its age.
When I wrote my original review for the Nintendo Switch version of this game years ago, I was thoroughly satisfied with the visual presentation – this was, after all, one of the greatest games of all time playing in uncompromised form on a handheld device. However, “uncompromised” is kinda’ a matter of perspective here – while this game’s 2017 release on Nintendo Switch is a solid port of the original release of the game on platforms like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it was already falling behind the Anniversary Edition of the game released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One a year prior in 2016, and while an upgraded “Anniversary Edition” was released on Nintendo Switch years afterward, it had none of the visual enhancements nor the full mod support that other platforms enjoyed.
I know that I’m supposed to be talking about playing this game on the Nintendo Switch 2, but I feel like I need to put this in proper context – the Nintendo Switch version of the game looks pretty ugly by today’s standards, especially with the low resolution. Yes, when I originally wrote this review roughly a half a decade ago, I praised the 720p 30fps presentation, but now it’s hard to look at this game with all the terrible shimmering and aliasing and pop-in and just overall dated visuals.
And I’ll tell you right now, playing this game on Nintendo Switch 2 fixes absolutely none of that.
I’ve seen elsewhere people claiming that this game’s performance takes a hit around areas like Riften, but honestly I don’t see that myself, so saying that the performance in that area is fine on Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t going to mean much. And all of the problems I did see in the Nintendo Switch version of the game, that I outlined above, all of those are still very much present on Nintendo Switch 2.
That’s not to say there’s no improvement at all here, though. The Nintendo Switch 2 massively slashes load times. On the Nintendo Switch, it took me 48 seconds to load into the title screen, and another 45 seconds to load up a game save. On Nintendo Switch 2, loading into that exact same game save took 13 seconds to get to the title screen and 18 seconds to load up the game. Even this on its own is a pretty incredible improvement over playing the game on Nintendo Switch.
However, let’s be honest about things – playing Skyrim on Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t even remotely close to the experience of playing it on a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series S. Heck, this is still lousy even compared to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As much as it pains me to say it, and as much as I know Bethesda’s top executive Todd Howard will salivate to hear it, the Nintendo Switch 2 really needs its own native version of this game. And yeah, if they release a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition version of Skyrim, I will probably buy it. Again. For the… fifth time? Sixth?
As for the Nintendo Switch version of the game running on a Nintendo Switch 2, how do I grade this game? This is still one of the greatest games ever made, and this is indeed better than playing the game on Nintendo Switch, even if only because of the improvements to loading times. But at the same time, playing Skyrim like this in 2025… it’s a massive disappointment.
Despite that I feel like the A++ grade I gave this game all those years ago was justified at the time, and despite that it’s better on Nintendo Switch 2, I feel like I need to give the game a worse grade here. Nintendo Switch 2 owners deserve better than this, and until Bethesda delivers a better version for this platform, I can’t let it slide that this game still plays far worse than versions released nearly a full decade ago.
tl;dr – Skyrim is an Open-World Action-RPG that gives players a huge, detailed world with an epic storyline, and lets them decide what they want to do in that world. This version of the game includes all of the expansions to the game, and adds in a few unique features of its own, such as gyroscopic aiming. And playing the game on Nintendo Switch 2 brings a marked improvement to loading times. However, for Nintendo Switch 2 to still be running the game at 720P 30FPS, without the mod support or graphical overhaul other platforms received nearly a decade ago, just feels plain wrong. This is still one of the greatest videogames of all-time, but it’s hard to justify how dated the visuals and performance are on Nintendo Switch 2.
Grade: A-
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition (Nintendo Switch 2)
Genre: Open-World First-Person Action-RPG
Players: 1
Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: ZeniMax Media Inc
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Review:
Well, wouldn’t you know it? I take a look at how the Nintendo Switch version of Skyrim works on Nintendo Switch 2 and go on a rant about how unacceptable it is that the game should look so bad on a modern platform in 2025, and how Nintendo Switch 2 needs its own release of the game, and not even a half a year later, we get exactly that.
The Nintendo Switch 2 release isn’t a “Nintendo Switch 2 Edition” release, but it might as well be. Players who own a digital copy of Skyrim on Nintendo Switch can buy the Nintendo Switch 2 release for $20, the same price as the Anniversary Edition upgrade on Nintendo Switch. And if you own a digital copy of the Anniversary Edition on Nintendo Switch already, this release will be discounted to $0 on Nintendo Switch 2, giving you a free upgrade. Also, for those coming from the Nintendo Switch version of the game, know that you can import your save data from that version.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that this version of the game still doesn’t have parity with the version of the Skyrim: Anniversary Edition available on other modern platforms. On Nintendo Switch 2, you only get a curated selection of the enhancements from that release, rather than access to the entire wealth of user-generated content. Pretty much exactly the same as the Nintendo Switch version of the Anniversary Edition, and I would strongly argue that this alone isn’t worth the $20 upgrade, much as I would argue it for that version.
On the other hand, you do have all of the Nintendo Switch enhancements available to you here. That means you have gyroscopic motion control in portions of the game where that makes sense such as aiming your bow and arrow, and you have access to the cross-promotional Zelda themed equipment as well. On Nintendo Switch 2, another system-specific feature is added to this list of exclusives: dynamic mouse mode, for use both in-game and in menus.
As for the graphics and performance, this is indeed the upgrade that the Nintendo Switch version of the game desperately needed on Nintendo Switch 2… but only just. The framerates are still unfortunately at a mere 30FPS, but the resolution has now been improved. I’m seeing the number 1080p in docked mode being passed around, but I haven’t seen numbers from anyone I can trust so take that with a grain of salt for now.
Is that better than the pathetic 720p 30FPS presentation we got on the original Nintendo Switch? Yes. But it’s pretty disappointing considering what we know the Nintendo Switch 2 is capable of.
There’s more to this story though, and it’s some good and some bad. Some textures (but not all) have been improved and look better in this release than on the original Nintendo Switch, and you have improved lighting and fog. However, there now appears to be a strange glitch with bodies of water that jitter up and down for some reason.
As for loading times, they’re better than the original version of the game on Nintendo Switch, but slightly worse than the original version of the game on Nintendo Switch 2, with the game taking 20 seconds to load up, and another 21 seconds to load a save. On balance, I think the tradeoff here is absolutely acceptable in exchange for the improvement to resolution.
Oh, and just to cap this all off, this game takes up 53.1GB of space on your MicroSD Express card or internal memory. For reference, the Nintendo Switch version of the game only takes up 12.8GB. This does not feel like a 40.3GB upgrade!
The result of all of this is that Skyrim is now in a state that I would say is much more playable on Nintendo Switch 2, but it’s disappointing how minor a jump this is given what this hardware is capable of. It’s especially disappointing that players who didn’t buy the overpriced and anemic Anniversary Edition expansion on Nintendo Switch are basically being forced to get that same paltry expansion now if they want to upgrade the performance on Nintendo Switch 2 even this small amount.
I remember being in awe of this game when it first came out. Its scope and visuals seemed absolutely stunning. And I still believe that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the greatest games ever made. But it’s hard not to be disappointed when this is the sort of update the game gets on the most modern Nintendo platform, an update that’s only just enough to make the game look like anything other than an eyesore by modern standards, and that doesn’t even try to bring the game up to par with other platforms. I still love this game, and if you want to play it on the go this is a decent way to do so. But I really, really wish it got a Nintendo Switch 2 release that truly did it justice.
tl;dr – Skyrim is an Open-World Action-RPG that gives players a huge, detailed world with an epic storyline, and lets them decide what they want to do in that world. This version of the game includes all of the expansions to the game, adds in a few unique features of its own, such as gyroscopic aiming, and has a curated selection of enhancements from other platforms’ Anniversary Edition releases, but don’t expect anything close to parity with those versions. Rather, this release only manages to update the graphics to merely tolerable specs, add in mouse mode, and make a few small visual improvements while also adding in some bugs. This is still one of the greatest videogames of all time, but it’s disappointing that this is all Nintendo Switch 2 got when the hybrid console is capable of so much more.
Grade: A
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