A New Patch Is Available for Breath of the Wild on Switch

Probably a stability update.....for stables.

It's also on the Wii U

Some are saying that it fixes framerate issues in certain areas, including the two main villages and a certain forest area.

Earthquakes will occur less often due to the new stability in the tectonic plates.

IT does fix the framerate. Korok Forest is better but still has frame drops. everywhere else is awesome. I don't think a single thing will fix that forest.

I'm getting mixed comments on the wii U version. Some say it improves it, some say no difference. We need digital foundry to foundry it.

Can't say no to stability!

But frame fixes are good especially in towns and forest areas

It's framerate stability. Stability is much improved in areas like the Great Plataeu and the Korok Forest, two of the most hit areas. While docked slowdown still exists, its much less severe than it used to be. Almost not there in handheld mode.

I can confirm there are frame rate improvements across the board. Mostly slight improvements because there are still drops just not as noticable

I'm terrified the patch will deal with the amiibo time resetting cheat. I scan my zelda amiibos for several hours every few days. It's nice having 999 arrows all the time....

Good work Ninteno! Going to check out those framerates later. Bodes well for the future if BOTW issues weren't hardware related

I've only tried it in handheld mode but the frame rate issues are notably better.

Lol, there goes your little memory-space!

Ok, I shouldn't laugh. We Wii u players had the big install on launchday.

"Going to check out those framerates later"

Yeah, that's what matters: Frame-rate droppings and age ratings. If the game is actually good and good looking? Nah, that totally doesn't matter!!

@Henmii I don't get this attitude. The game is good. Most people love it and it has been getting perfect scores left and right.

With that established, why is it a bad thing to wish for better performance? The game could be even more enjoyable with stable framerates across all locations.

Probably (and hopefully) a decrease on the rain. That would be great =D

I have played it after applying the patch and the rains makes no frame drops anymore. I must test it inside a high grass and forest to be sure

@MarcelRguez,

I said it because I find it super annoying that always when the game comes up the first thing people say is: Framerate-droppings everywhere. As if that's the only thing that matters!

Need less rain..

@kobashi100 it has been raining a lot in Hyrule.

@SanderEvers I thought that only affected nearby areas, not the whole Hyrule. I may be wrong, though.

Much much less framedrops in the big forest and i villages. Gj Nintendo

@WolfieDude Nice avatar!

FPS was improved A LOT. Docked now I have drops only in Korok Forest. Everywhere else is just smooth as butter. Handheld is just awesome.

I think I just had horrid luck but right after this update, it rained in game like several days in a row

@Henmii It's like 170 MB, calm down bro.

@KoopaTheGamer You're correct, he's wrong.

It's such a big game, it could be updating one small corner of the map, how would you know if it changed anything?

Awesome that Nintendo has addressed these little niggles to deliver a higher quality experience

Sigh... I wish they would have added dual audio...

The game was in no way broken and it is such a fantastic game it's easy to forgive small issues. The haters use the frame rate issue as proof that it doesn't deserve the kudos. This has now been all but eliminated. This is a good/ smug day for all us Nintendo fans.

@Henmii I don't think people in general do that, only a vocal minority. And if they do, it's because they think it hampers the experience. Different people have different priorities when it comes to critizising games, one would think the community at large would have accepted that by now.

I've been stuck with the shrine where you show three guardian photos....I've all three photos but it won't trigger the show photo option.......
Let's hope the patch fixes this!

I absolutely love the game and hate it.. (Playing on Wii U)
I love it because it's so good, but I hate it because the framerate drops makes for an awful experience, it keeps distracting me because it's so noticable, but I can't keep myself playing despite it..
Nintendo needs to stop caring so much about graphics, reduce the graphics quality and bring the framerate up.
The performance issues makes this 10/10 game a 7/10.

Nintendo with their vague patch notes, like they don't trust us or something.

I noticed the framerate issues for the first time last night, so this is good news.

@Henmii
I would say that Fallout 4 temporarily dropping to zero FPS on XBox one is a significant issue, regardless of how well it plays or looks.

@seiseki You obviously have a different Nintendo machine and you play a different Zelda game from the rest of the world. There are just some tiny little framerate drops here and there that in no way make for an awful experience.

So it's fixed bugs within the game. Does that mean those grasshoppers, butterflies and dragonflies won't be constantly flying away from me now?

@seiseki You should review games for IGN.

OT, I'd be more interested in reducing the chance of rain.

Does it fix the Moblin ragdoll freezing? Otherwise, looks great so far!

@setezerocinco haha. I wish! The amount of times I've set out to do something that involves climbing and it rains!

Comments section should use spoiler tags

I hope the WiiU version got the improvements as well.

@Henmii Frame rates crapping out or not has mattered since Daytona USA arcade in 1993.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE I'm useless at catching insects, I go charging about and don't even realise they're there until they fly away

Played a little with this update and in portable mode at least Korok forest was much smoother aside from one small sticking point. Docked mode is still just as poor as it was before in that area, starting area still seems a bit jerky too

@SwitchVogel

Curiously, the total size of the update data on the European Switch build of Breath Of The Wild went down!

Version 1.1.0: 216 MB
Version 1.1.1: 162 MB

I wonder what kind of data was in those 54 removed mega-bytes.

Edit for those who don't understand:
The update data sizes above are cumulative. Total update data size now takes up fifty-four mega-bytes less space.

"a more pleasant gaming experience"

Maybe electric Ganon won't one-shot kill me now?

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Honestly, this game NEEDS a bug net!

What a difference this has made to the Wii U version. Just fast traveled to Haterno and Kakariko Village to check them out, at certain times they could be a real chore to explore due to the framerate. I just had a run through them there in the daytime with pouring rain and although not quite perfect, it's so much smoother than before. Great job Nintendo. Bodes well for the future.

@Cosats I have the Wii U version and it's definitely worse than "some tiny little frame drops here and there." At certain villages and stables it could be really bad. It didn't effect my opinion of the game but it certainly made for a less enjoyable experience than it should be at times.

I really hope it fixes the unobtainable Korok seed...

@SwitchVogel There's also a Wii U patch, too.

@BornInNorway81
Patches are cumulative. No reason the 1.1.1 should be the same size as 1.1.0

Why are you stating the obvious?

@Dezzy
"Patches are cumulative. No reason the 1.1.1 should be the same size as 1.1.0"

The update is also for the dead system; Wii u. Such an effort i had trying to free up 250mb on the Wii u usb. It's only 32gb and I've the 8gb Wii u.

The struggles i do have. 😫

Definitely the most addictive game ever. And this update makes it that little bit closer to perfection. Can't wait to get one of my fine horses out later and charge through a rainy forest.

@BornInNorway81
Because you said you wondered what they removed in those 50mb.
They didn't remove anything, because each patch is going to contain complete different things.

@BensonUii

Its nice to get a more objective measurement than "look it's clearly a lot better"

You should read my first post again, and if you don't get what is written, read again while analyzing every word.

54 MB were removed.

@Dezzy
"Because you said you wondered what they removed in those 50mb.
They didn't remove anything, because each patch is going to contain complete different things."

As already mentioned, there's a definite framerate improvement in a certain forest section that suffered the worst slowdown in the game IMO...

I hope the framerate fixes improve battles against multiple enemies. I've actually had full game lock up for a few secs whilst fighting a couple of the big Moblin guys. It's a shame because almost everything else about the game is perfect.

@seiseki "Nintendo needs to stop caring so much about graphics, reduce the graphics quality and bring the framerate up."

You'll notice that the areas with the worst framerates also have the highest concentration of NPCs. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the lower framerate is due to AI loops overloading the CPU, and not to do with graphics.

@Dezzy lol!

It does help with framerate issues. I have notice little patches of grass like at the edges of cliffs act differently. They are almost transparent and don't react to link...i know that's weird of me to notice.

@Henmii ? The patch is 160MB. Hardly a memory eater. Of course frame rate improvement is important. The game is beautiful and a lot of fun. It's not clear what your point is.

Why does Nintendo never provide "full" patch notes? I love em' but some things they do really don't make any sense at all.

Do they just fail at logging bugfixes? Are they paranoid that trade secrets will get out?

@Joeynator3000 There is now an additional log holding up the roof of each stable.

We hope the horses will now be less spooked by the creaking noise from the structure.

@Kogorn733 Some of their studios do, do proper patch notes, others don't. It's not consistent between the studios. Not surprising since they usually are given some freedom in their policies (check dlc treatments from each studio, it's striking to see a comparison between Animal Crossing/Splatoon vs Fire Emblem/Smash Bros).

@seiseki "Nintendo needs to stop caring so much about graphics..."

That's a statement I'd never think I'd hear.

I played around in Korok Forest. A tiny bit of slowdown here and there, but vastly better than before.

What about the moblins? Almost freezes whey fighting them?

@WolfieDude
Really?!...

@setezerocinco
Are you by any chance portuguese?

I', playing it on Wii U. Haven't played for two days. Must go and check it out. Well done Nintendo.

@renato_racfr brazillian =D

I'll second the question if anyone's tried moblins. I haven't had too many problems with it but I played a side quest in Death Mountain yesterday with a bunch of moblins and each time I'd kill one the game would lock and I thought for sure it was going to crash. It didn't, but there's an odd loading delay on killing some moblins.

Overall glad to hear it seems unanimous that the patch fixes the framerate in a lot of places. The game's generally smooth but I love and hate that forest, and other random places (haven't noticed any other towns run particularly slow, it's mostly open expanses.)

Thanks for the spoiler warning, Gamexplain...

@IceClimbers That certain forest area really needed work on

I was surprised and happy to see the patch, along with the rumors of framerate improvements. Humorously, I only have about an hour left in the game, as I'm headed into the castle this evening for the final confrontation. Womp womp, haha. Still, it'll be nice for new players, and while the issues were hardly catastrophic before, it will be cool to further improve this masterpiece.

Hey @SwitchVogel why is the news still reporting on this article just Switch? The update has been confirmed live also for Wii U.

Update the article header and the website link also, please.

Most of the people who complain about the framerate issue are people who haven't even played the game. So I don't think a patch will fix whatever their problem is.

@Kolzig Because people have decided that since Wii U is no longer current, it is longer relevant and have pushed it from their minds, forgotten its existence. Even the GE video completely ignored Wii U outside of a mention at the beginning that the patch is for Switch and Wii U. Hopefully if (and that's a big IF) someone does a patch/framerate comparison on the Wii U version NL will post that video too.

And I agree as well that the headline should be purged of the words "on Switch" since a patch is available for both systems. Wii U should be added as a tag as well. However, have they ever changed an inaccurate headline (not sarcasm- I really don't know- but my expectation depends on the answer)? I will be fair and suggest that when @SwitchVogel wrote the article perhaps only the Switch patch was announced/released. However, now that it's known the Wii U version also has a patch the article should be updated as mentioned- in fact, should have been when the GameExplain video was added.

@SirRandall
deforestation?

I realize it may be a placebo effect, but I think after the patch on Wii U both Korok forest and Kakariko still have drops but to a lesser degree, and only show the previous behaviour when panning the camera. If I just walk straight without touching the camera they both seem to run a little better than before.

Honestly I've put in a lot of time into the game and thus far the times where I've experienced framerate issues, haven't really impacted my gameplay experience yet. But then again I have yet to go to Korok Forrest, which is considered to be one of the worst areas according to players.

In all honesty, I've yet to see what the big issue is either way. Maybe I don't quite get what it is I'm supposed to be seeing as less than perfect. I hear the term "slowdown" used to further describe these dropped frames, but I really never see an appreciable slowdown or hitch in the movement.

The visual artifacts that I do see are always more to do with textures twitching when objects are moving, particularly stationary items like rocks or trees while the camera moves by them. But this doesn't seem to be the issue everyone keeps bringing up. I would expect it to be more of a case of the entire screen image pausing for a noticeable lag, but I just never see that.

Do a lot of people have hyper speed eyes these days? Movies have long been 24 frames per second, so do these people see movies as more of a series of stills like a flipbook? How is there such an issue with something that I just can't even notice?

I was just noticing in the WiiU version it seems as if load times have slightly improved. Instead of the load bar stopping on the logo, it moves steady like the Switch version.

@Jimsbo When you enter Hateno Village, it's very apparent.

@Lord Are you sure you have a walking one, a flying one and a small one from inside a shrine? Maybe you were too far when you took the pic? You camera will prompt you with the red ! if you're in range.

Extensive testing would be needed to see how this patch impacts the frame rate. A boost in performance is certainly welcome, but I wonder what measures were taken to obtain these results.

@seiseki lol, you sir are an ass who doesn't have the Wii U version. The framerate issues don't bring this down to a 7.

@liveswired Why are there so many blind fanboys here that can't tolerate criticism?
Do I need to post proof that I own a Wii U and BotW?
Is it so unfathomable that I think this is an issue, that it's more likely that I'm a troll?

I'm telling you I love the game, but the framerates are an issue for me. You guys need to chill. Does it really bother you so much that I think it's 7/10?

I'm the kind of person who easily gets motion sickness and bad framerates is something I can easily spot, I wish I could be blissfully ignorant and enjoy the game, but I can't.

Let me give some info only someone playing would know.
Near the Faron tower, on the plateu where two Lizals are dancing, the perfect spot to gather Hearty Durians, the framerate drops quite badly, but only when you look towards the center of the plateu.
There are several spots like that all over. I'll play the latest patch and go to that spot and see if it still drops.

@ThePoochyKid It happens so frequently out in the wild so I don't think that's it, at least not the only cause, it might be what's making villages laggy, but villages also have lots of light sources.

It's probably the amount of foliage that's just too much in some places. It doesn't really happen with only Grass.

@Asaki BotW looks amazing, but it's never worth trading for smooth gameplay.
Nintendo has always been gameplay and art style over powerful graphics.

I own both Wind Waker HD and Hyrule Warriors and they are silk smooth.
Xenoblade Chronicles X had some minor framerate drops, but they were so gradual and never bothered me. And they have a massive open world with Mecha and huge creatures.

@seiseki I've found that while WWHD may be silky smooth lots of the time, it definitely does have its frame-drops. Just blowing up some bombs and getting a lot of particle effects on the screen causes huge drops, which weren't even present on the GameCube version.

@54noah I must have forgotten about that.
Didn't bombs lag in OOT too? Maybe that was only when you blew up lots of things that spewed out items.

I can sorta live with stuff like bombs, but when it's caused by foliage, which is almost everywhere, it gets a lot more annoying.

I did try to chop down some foliage in areas where the frame rate dropped and it did fix the frame rate in that particular spot.
It's kind easy to test because when you press the home button and then resume, the foliage re-spawns. At least on Wii U.

but did the do the same for the Wii U version?

I see the headline and tags still leave Wii U out. Conclusion: Mr. Vogel appears to be one who chooses to not acknowledge the existence of the Wii U version. Not true? Then please correct me, and this article. Thank you.

@derrin,

When you have so little memory on Switch, every inch counts!

@shaneoh,

I don't know much of that game, so I don't know.

@MarcelRguez,

Yes, if its a minority then it is a VERY vocal minority. I wonder if those people also have that much trouble with older Nintendo-games, who knows. A few years ago I never heard of framerate-droppings in games! It would be fun if a game like Yooka Laylee would do this in a level on purpose, and then make fun of it!

Update: Oh, the update is also on the Wii u version. Something the article doesn't tell!

Is that what the wii u update is?

@MarcelRguez I agree! It's a wonderful game. Future updates and stability improvements are welcomed! This game is amazing.

It made the framerate around Death Mountain a lot worse.

@Cosats
I've seen so many threads on this, it's clearly really subjective. I'm with you - I barely noticed except for in K--- Forest, and I really don't mind. Slow menus and UIs ruin games for me, so I guess everyone has picadillos.

Patch of the Wild

Ok so I have actually played Zelda on both Switch and WiiU. More on Switch but I wanted to see the tech difference and get WiiUs last and greatest AAA game. The game is so varied playing two runs at once is actually fun.

The game is amazing on both systems but Switch has a clear edge in fidelity and performance. I am just amazed N made this and Xeno run so well on WiiU.

Why is it that framerate issues are so heavily whined about on Nintendo sites? Amost all large scale open world games have framerate issues on consoles. Sometimes they get meaninful patches but sometimes not. Zelda on either system is not as bad as many 3rd party AAA games are (looking at you Ubi) at launch. Load times are also good. I am playing cart on Switch and digital on a fast usb stick on WiiU. WiiU holds up suprisingly well but I wonder how disc does?

All I can sa is this is one of the best games ever made on either system and if you have a WiiU gathering dust then get this game and get one more play from the old system.

Does anyone know where game patches are downloaded on the Switch when it's a cartridge? System or Micro SD?

@BigBadJohn I think it's silly too, but some people are really sensitive to framedrops, just like some people have motions sickness triggered by different FOVs and POVs.

Sure some people are picking at that for no other reason than console warz type nonsense, but it can be a real issue for others, and I'm glad the game is more enjoyable for them.

It might be age, but in the SNES daya slowdown was always like a "Woah! So much is happening!" kind of feeling that not only do I not really mind when I do notice, but it's got this subconcious positive connotation.

@setezerocinco
Rigth. Your name seemed portuguese as well as setezerocinco. Three numbers in portuguese.
Well, at least it was nice to know you.
See you around I guess.

@renato_racfr we speak portuguese in Brazil. We were a colony in the past. Brazil is the only country in South America that does not speak Spanish.
But I live in Germany =]