We’ve already discussed the other console versions of Resident Evil Requiem, finding it to deliver the goods on all systems – with PS5 Pro’s RT and image quality delivering a game-changing upgrade. However, at the other end of the scale, Switch 2 may well be the least capable current-gen system in terms of pixel-pushing power, but the port is elegant and DLSS is once again instrumental in making this conversion work. Resolution is slashed to 540p docked, but the Nvidia upscaler delivers image quality that bests the Series S version running at a native 720p.
There is an important caveat, however, and it’s best to get this out of the way upfront. The Switch 2 port runs with an unlocked frame-rate, whether you’re playing docked or in handheld mode. What this means is that while the game arguably may look better than Xbox Series S, frame-rate is far more variable. Anything from circa 30fps to 60fps docked, dropping to a mid-20s nadir when running in portable mode. Handheld play – remarkably – renders at just 360p, but once again, DLSS does a good job in delivering a good mobile experience overall.
There are further compromises, of course. What’s impressive, though, is how little they seem to matter in the run of play. Geometry is pared back, textures can be of a lower quality, while the strand-based hair system seen elsewhere is replaced with animated, textured “cards” that are a clearly noticeable downgrade – especially in cutscenes. Somehow though, just about everything that matters remains intact. It’s just the hair quality and the frame-rate that are the key separating factors.
We do need to spend some time on just how good DLSS is here. On paper, a 540p image blown up to 1080p on a modern flat panel display doesn’t sound great. However, DLSS (likely the full CNN-based variant, comparable to PC) looks surprisingly competitive. Fine detail like wires and fences can actually appear more temporally stable on Switch 2, while PS5’s spatial upscaling solution (likely FSR1 or similar) looks noisier and less refined in motion. PS5 still wins overall on clarity, aided by its higher internal resolution and 4K UI (Switch 2 uses a 1080p UI), but the gap is much narrower than raw pixel counts would suggest.
The handheld story is even more extreme, but somehow a 4x resolution upscale from 360p to 720p (likely with a basic upscale to the screen’s 1080p) still manages to look fine. Some artefacts, including hatched patterns in certain areas, betray just how low the base resolution is, but overall the result is far better than native 360p rendering would imply. Importantly, docked and handheld share most visual features; Capcom avoids aggressive feature cuts with on-the-go gaming.
Variable performance really could use some work, however. Optional 30fps and 40fps (for 120Hz screens) caps would help. Actual, proper VRR support for docked mode would also help immensely. Without these things, fluidity is compromised. Even in portable play, VRR has issues – primarily when the frame-rate drops beneath 40fps, outside of the 60Hz VRR window.
But it’s the comparison with Series S that really is intriguing. It runs almost flawlessly on the junior Xbox – its key advantage over Switch 2 – but despite the Nintendo machine featuring only 56 percent of the base pixel count, it really does look better overall.
Also noteworthy is how Series S also drops the strand-based hair system, just like Switch 2. However, other cutbacks seen on the Nintendo hybrid – pared back geometry, for example – aren’t replicated on the Xbox console.
Still, Capcom deserves kudos for this port, which exemplifies both the scalability of the RE Engine and the care and attention that key conversions to Switch 2 are receiving. Capcom has preserved the core visual identity of the game, delivered a pretty convincing mobile version and leveraged the hardware’s not-so-secret weapon – DLSS – to make this conversion defy the console’s necessarily limited specs. The missing piece is frame-rate discipline, something we’d hope to see Capcom look into with a future patch.