Bethesda turns Skyrim’s rough Switch 2 launch around with an update that quietly adds 60fps mode, leaving fans on the floor: “I wanna cry, it’s beautiful”

After a pretty disastrous launch, Bethesda is making some strong improvements to Skyrim on Switch 2. A new patch actually brings a rather momentous improvement, because it unlocks 60fps on the RPG, and players cannot believe their eyes.

In the patch notes for update 1.2 on Switch 2, the top feature is a 60 Hz mode that lets you select to either “Prioritize Visuals” or “Prioritize Performance.” Relatively innocuous on its face, the latter does something magic: it unlocks 60fps, in both docked and handheld modes.

“Thanks to the team and Bethesda for listening and making this massive improvement. If you were on the fence about playing this on Switch 2, it is absolutely worth it!” writes one enthusiastic fan on Reddit, who provides a short clip of the fidelity on the handheld.

“I wanna cry, it’s beautiful,” adds another commenter on Reddit. There is something about seeing the fifth mainline Elder Scrolls game still looking good after a decade-and-a-half that is startling.

The port probably should’ve been released with this built in. Skyrim arrived on Nintendo’s system in a shoddy state, and there are several crash fixes in the update, and that’s not lost on the audience either. “Bethesda doing bare minimum again,” says one fan on Twitter.

At least anyone who picks it up now can enjoy shouting, “Fus Ro Dah!” on the go at 60fps, instead of just doing so to random strangers. Or is that just me?

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Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won???t stop going on about it or anything.