
Would it really be another year of gaming without a new edition of Skyrim coming out? For those who missed it, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition flew over to Switch last month as either a bundle in and of itself or as an add-on purchase for those who already owned the game, and some players were disappointed to experience the title occasionally drop to 15-20fps in certain areas.
We didn't run into any performance issues in our review of the Anniversary Edition, but others were not so lucky. Fortunately, it looks like a new patch dropped for the game last week and the frame rate seems to have improved because of it.

This latest patch brings the base game up to date with the following catchy version number: 1.1.177.3285177. Quite a mouthful, but surely an improvement from the notoriously dark times of version 1.1.177.3285176!
Xiphos Gaming posted a side-by-side comparison of the game running pre- and post-patch on YouTube (found below), demonstrating that the Anniversary Edition now runs at a smooth 30fps. This seems to even apply in areas like Falkreath, Morthol, and Solitude.
We have no official patch notes from the update, but it looks like many players are seeing the benefits. Both u/Havinacow and u/brainensmoothed took to the Nintendo Switch Reddit forum to note the performance changes, with many others agreeing.
There has been a certain level of confusion surrounding the cause of the Anniversary Edition's frame rate issues, with some citing the game's texture formats not being correctly translated to Switch and others pointing to the problems only arising with the installation of too many mods. Either way, it certainly looks as if the game is now on the mend for those who previously saw problems.
Thanks for the tip, Arkay! Have you noticed any changes in the game? Fast Travel down to the comments and let us know!
[source youtube.com]
Comments 29
They need to update the game’s Home Screen menu icon as well, because it sucks.
It can't be "too much" Mods, as the non Anniversary Edition is also effected.
TO MUCH WAIT TIME IN BETWEEN TOWNS
@Piyo Bethesda or whoever developed the update botched the performance, not Nintendo. Powerful hardware doesn't help much when a game is shoddily coded.
Alan Wake need‘s this Patch, too
Cool. I can buy it now.
Nice. Im actually playing Skyrim again since a couple of days back, haven't noticed the framerate problems so far, mb now I wont have to notice it in the future neither
@Piyo has nothing to do with the system. I’ve been playing Skyrim since launch on a gaming grade pc and it’s still a buggy mess. And pc users had issues with anniversary edition at launch. Nothing to do with switch.
Finally. Sounds like I can update the game now.
We didn't run into any performance issues in our review of the Anniversary Edition, but others were not so lucky.
To be fair, there were plenty of people in the comments telling the reviewer many people were reporting performance issues the day the review dropped almost a month ago.
Why the author failed to mention these claims, despite saying he would follow up, I am unsure.
@Ryu_Niiyama
Yeah, every time I play Skyrim, there is at least 2 or so quest lines that will glitch so I cant finish them.
@Piyo the switch in it's current state is actually more powerful than a ps3 and 360. So hopefully a new switch would be more equal to a ps4 and if it isn't Nintendo shouldn't bother releasing a new model imo.
@Piyo Performance issues in Bethesda console games are a feature. It was a pain on those consoles, as well.
On PC, fans and modders always fix Bethesda games for each other.
Coolio, May well pick this up now!
@Piyo
Skyrim that came out 2011 was a 32 bit Game.
Skyrim now is a 64 bit Game and has new better textures (and other differences).
@Azuris
64-bit? That was the N64, not PS4/XBO lol
@Piyo Credit is where credit is due, your bait was successful. :V
@Piyo people didn't understand your ironic tone.
Thanks for taking my suggestion @nintendolife !
Game def plays much more smoother now
About time you guys reported this, I was talking about this update here nearly a week ago in the Alan Wake review (since you were talking about the game having poor performance), among other articles.
@ Piyo Skyrim running poorly is par for the course. It's a feature, not a bug.
Doesn't run at a smoothe frame rate on my ps4 pro it's all over the place lol
@Host-Migration
Exactly, thank you.
Also, the Bit Architecture alone doesn't mean a Processor/System is faster.
Thats why there is no Need to jump off 64 bit Systems.
To stay at Consoles, the Jaguar with "do the Math" is a great negative Example^^
@westman98 not sure if you're joking but 64-bit graphics is different from 64-bit cpu processing.
"We didn't run into any performance issues in our review of the Anniversary Edition"
Tell us you didn't actually play the game before reviewing it without telling us you didn't actually play the game before reviewing it.
It was the same crap with Civ 6 on Switch and Book of Unwritten Tales 2 on Wii U. Don't just test it for 5 minutes and then write your review based on the older version you actually played years ago.
Good. I was waiting for this to get patched.
Has anyone else gotten the "This save relies on content no longer present" message? I would really like my items back if someone has a fix for that
@Piyo I'm hoping for a PS4 as minimum. Nintendo is like 3 or 4 generations behind and as a huge fan it has really been bumming me out. I've always been a gameplay over graphics kind of person but the gameplay and frame rates and bad graphics and cut content are too much on Switch for me in 2022. In 2017 when Switch was fresh and for the last few years it's been fine but it's time for Nintendo to drop a new Switch. Even in 2017 the Switch was outdated tech as per usual for Nintendo's design philosophy but if we could even get up to 2020 standards that would be cool.
@Schizor88 Yea it's definitely stronger than XB360 and PS3 but not as powerful as PS4 and XB1. Sometimes with some games it can approach a base PS4 but that's on the best of days with the best developers and best of circumstances. I hope the next Switch can be on par with a base PS4 thinking realistically. Even just having a handheld PS4 would be amazing. Steam Deck is great but Nintendo isn't going to pull out those stops...then again Nintendo always does the unexpected so who knows. Maybe they will make a premium "Pro" Switch and a basic model similar to how Microsoft has positioned the Xbox Series S and X models. I'd be down with that.
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