{"id":797627,"date":"2026-08-01T15:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797627\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T15:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:42:09","slug":"clair-obscur-switch-2-status-reveals-the-reality-of-nintendos-console","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797627\/","title":{"rendered":"Clair Obscur Switch 2 status reveals the reality of Nintendo’s console"},"content":{"rendered":"

Switchboard is Polygon’s weekly newsletter for all things Nintendo, sent on Thursdays and published on the site on Saturdays. You can subscribe here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Just one year into the Switch 2\u2019s lifespan, Nintendo\u2019s console feels like a technical miracle. It\u2019s downright shocking that it can run modern games like Resident Evil Requiem and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth with minimal compromises, or that new games like Onimusha: Way of the Sword will launch on it at the same time as on PS5 and Xbox Series X. For Nintendo fans who spent decades pining for third-party games that never came to underpowered machines like the Wii, it feels like the Switch 2 can do it all. Except it can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

We got a reality check this week courtesy of Sandfall Interactive, the developer of last year\u2019s Game of the Year winning Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In a new interview with Automaton Media<\/a>, Sandfall co-founder Tom Guillermin explained that the team wants to bring its hit RPG to Switch 2, but said that it would be a \u201cbig technical challenge\u201d to pull off.<\/p>\n

The problem? Unreal Engine 5. Clair Obscur heavily relied on the engine\u2019s features to make its game, especially taking advantage of Blueprints<\/a> (a scripting tool that lets developers plug nodes together to craft gameplay systems). The team said that many of those features simply don\u2019t work on Switch 2 at present. \u201cThey\u2019re introducing features like Lumen Lite now, which is easier to run than the standard Lumen,\u201d lead character and concept artist Alan Reynaud explained, \u201cbut these things take time to roll out, so we\u2019ll have to consider the updates coming from Unreal Engine to determine what to do.\u201d With some Switch 2 ports, developers are simply at the mercy of Epic for now.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first example of a developer struggling to get its game working on Switch 2. Last year, 2K Games indefinitely delayed<\/a> the Switch 2 release of Borderlands 4 for \u201cadditional development and polish time.\u201d Closing in on one year later, we haven\u2019t heard a peep about it since. (Though Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick told Game File<\/a> that the project hadn’t been cancelled earlier this year.)<\/p>\n

\"Elden
\n Image: FromSoftware\/Bandai Namco<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the long-running saga of Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition. First announced during the Switch 2\u2019s full reveal Direct with a 2025 release window, the port faced a year-long delay<\/a> after hands-on impressions out of last year\u2019s Gamescom raised some serious red flags. Finally set to release on Aug. 28, Elden Ring will now land as a crucial stress test for Switch 2. FromSoftware\u2019s ability to get the open-world game \u2014 one that was released on PS4 and Xbox One \u2014 running well on the hardware will tell us a lot about how flexible Nintendo\u2019s dream machine is. (The good news is that it seems to be in much better shape<\/a> than it was last year.)<\/p>\n

The reality is that the Switch 2 still has its limits, even though companies like Capcom and Square Enix have seemingly cracked the console\u2019s code. It takes hard work to get Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth running on the hardware, and that\u2019s a challenge for smaller teams like Sandfall Interactive who may not have the resources to invest in time-consuming ports. We\u2019re still far off from a reality where every third-party game will get a Switch 2 version, and that will only become apparent if a new console generation begins midway through the Switch 2\u2019s lifespan.<\/p>\n

Never forget that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild felt like a miracle when fans first played it on the go in 2017. Eight years later, Switch owners were begging for an upgrade. That\u2019s the nature of hardware, and the Switch 2 will not be immune to that cycle in the long run.<\/p>\n

eShop game of the week: Moss: The Forgotten Relic<\/p>\n

The formerly VR-exclusive Moss series made its way to consoles this month, and it feels right at home on Switch. The pair of games featured in Moss: The Forgotten Relic are both delightful, kind-hearted adventures starring an adorable mouse. (The pint-sized hero melted Austin Manchester\u2019s heart, as you can read in his review<\/a>.) It doesn\u2019t get much more Nintendo than that.<\/p>\n

Nintendo Classics game of the week: Zero Wing<\/p>\n

A classic arcade series makes its return this week with Truxton Extreme, so it\u2019s a good weekend to pay some respects to Truxton creator Toplan, the master of the shoot-\u2019em-up genre. The best way to do that is by jumping into one of its most iconic games, Mega Drive classic Zero Wing. Yes, it\u2019s the game that gave us \u201cAll your base are belong to us,\u201d but it\u2019s also a tense sci-fi shump with a killer soundtrack to boot.<\/p>\n

Nintendo Music track of the week: \u201cSunset Bay\u201d from Wave Race 64<\/p>\n

It feels like summer just began, but we\u2019ve already reached August. Don\u2019t let the last few weeks of heat slip away; toss on the Wave Race 64 soundtrack today. It\u2019s full of sunny beachside anthems, including this radical prog rock jam that feels like it was plucked right out of an 80s movie. (There’s a playlist of all of Switchboard’s music picks here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s most interesting releases<\/p>\n

The King is Watching<\/a><\/p>\n

July 29<\/p>\n

Switch<\/p>\n

Roguelite kingdom builder where you roleplay as a ruthless ruler<\/p>\n

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 \u2014 Nintendo Switch 2 Edition<\/a><\/p>\n

July 30<\/p>\n

Switch 2<\/p>\n

Beloved Switch RPG enhanced with performance boosts and a cool new sword<\/p>\n

Truxton Extreme<\/a><\/p>\n

July 30<\/p>\n

Switch 2<\/p>\n

White-knuckle shoot-\u2019em-up revives an arcade classic in style<\/p>\n

Constance<\/a><\/p>\n

July 30<\/p>\n

Switch, Switch 2<\/p>\n

Hand-drawn paintbrush Metroidvania gets a 120fps boost<\/p>\n

Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel<\/a><\/p>\n

July 30<\/p>\n

Switch 2<\/p>\n

Intense action roguelike drenched in Norse mythology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Switchboard is Polygon’s weekly newsletter for all things Nintendo, sent on Thursdays and published on the site on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-797627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}