At Gamescom 2023, Nintendo allegedly showed the Nintendo Switch 2 to numerous development partners. During the presentation, an upgraded version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was reportedly displayed, and more details have now been shared.
According to reports from Digital Foundry, the Nintendo Switch 2 Zelda demo was designed to showcase some of the upgrades available for the new handheld console.
The reports claim that the Breath of the Wild demo ran at 4K, 60fps in the Switch 2’s docked TV play mode. However, the 4K resolution was not native. Instead, the Zelda demo reached the high resolution via DLSS image reconstruction.
Due to the Nintendo Switch 2 using Nvidia hardware, a version of DLSS 3.5 has reportedly been tweaked specifically for the new handheld console. This allows software like Breath of the Wild to reach high resolutions with a lower performance impact.
Exact specifics of the Nintendo Switch 2 Zelda demo are still under wraps. While the game ran at a higher resolution and doubled framerate, there are no details on whether or not other aspects of the game were also improved.
For example, while the Nintendo Switch 2 tech demo was running at a reconstruction 4K, the higher resolution has not been confirmed to be using better quality textures, lower pop-in or higher quality shadows and ambient occlusion.
The Breath of the Wild demo isn’t the only technical showcase for the Nintendo Switch 2 specs. In fact, the Gamescom meeting reportedly showed a modified version of Epic’s The Matrix Awakens demo running on Switch 2 level hardware with DLSS and ray-tracing turned on.
Other reports claim multiple other improvements to the new Nintendo console including 12GB of RAM and an option for 512GB of internal storage. However, these reports have less credibility than that of the recent Gamescom stories.
According to sources such as Microsoft and Nintendo SoC suppliers, the Nintendo Switch 2 release date is scheduled for 2024. Whether or not it will launch in early or late 2024 has yet to be determined.