'Elden Ring' Is Set to Appear on Next-Gen Platforms, but What About the Nintendo Switch?

The end of February 2022 marks the release of one of the year's most anticipated video games. Elden Ring was previously announced in 2019 and is a collaboration between Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki and A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin. After a lengthy development cycle, the game is set to release on several previous-gen consoles as well as next-gen consoles. Among its many release platforms, will it appear on the Nintendo Switch?

Elden Ring takes place in the magical realm of the Lands Between, some time after the titular Elden Ring was destroyed and its shards scattered across the world. As one of the Tarnished — a faction of exiles — players must traverse the land and take on corrupted demigods who possess shards of the Elden Ring. The ultimate goal is to restore the Elden Ring and become the new Elden Lord. Will players be able to undergo their quest on the Switch?

Director Hidetaka Miyazaki is known for creating extremely detailed and vibrant open worlds for each of his games. Titles like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice each place players in enormous game maps filled with secret areas, deadly enemies, and optional content to add to the main objectives. Elden Ring is no different, featuring an impossibly large map with beautiful detail that promises to add dozens of hours to your gameplay on top of the main story.

Could the Nintendo Switch possibly handle all that Elden Ring has to offer? After all, one of the most memorable games on the Switch was 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The critically acclaimed Zelda title features an immense open world and shockingly deep game mechanics that affords players with tons of variety and creative freedom. For all intents and purposes, the Switch is no stranger to open world games, leaving at least some precedent for Elden Ring to be on it.

Unfortunately for Switch players, if the day comes that Elden Ring could appear on the Switch, then it won't be on its initial launch. The game is not coming to the Nintendo Switch upon its release. The size of the world, graphic fidelity, and special effects within Elden Ring make it perfect for PC and new consoles like the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X and S. But all those bells and whistles might be too much for the Switch to handle right now.

It's also important to note that very few of Hidetaka's Souls-adjacent titles typically make it to the Switch. The first Dark Souls, originally released 2011, arrived on the Switch in 2018 but could not run at the games at 60 frames per second. Many longtime fans criticized this port for making the game feel sluggish on the Nintendo console. Meanwhile, Bloodborne was only released on the PlayStation 4 and Sekiro came out on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

If the Switch can only just run a port of a 2011 game and other Hidetaka Miyazaki games didn't even try to arrive on the Switch, there's little hope for Elden Ring to come out on the Switch any time soon.

Elden Ring is set to release on Feb. 22 on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S.