Some part of me hoped we could end the year without having Bethesda mess up yet again. There are only so many days left – what could it possibly do? As it turns out, re-release The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, this time on the Nintendo Switch 2.
And not just any version of Skyrim, no, the Skyrim Anniversary Edition – technically the fourth iteration of the game, not counting the VR version or Collector’s Edition. Over 14 years later, after the original launched for the Xbox 360, PC and PS3, and more than seven years after director Todd Howard said, straight up, “If you want us to stop releasing it, stop buying it.”
No doubt taking a page out of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered’s playbook, Bethesda shadow-dropped the Switch 2 port out of nowhere. For $60, you could get the base game, all of its expansions, “hundreds” of Creation Club items (which feature some actual decent mods), and Nintendo-exclusive Zelda content. Leaving aside the fact that $60 is an absurd price to pay for Skyrim in 2025, at least it’s a free upgrade for current Switch 1 owners.
Bethesda also promised some visual improvements, at least, as far as it wanted to on the Switch 2. Textures and character models look better, even if the differences are quite minor, and some players have reported a higher resolution in Handheld Mode (1080p, which is up from 720p). Loading times are also significantly faster, though you can decide whether 17 seconds to load a save is acceptable in this day and age. That’s all, seemingly good news, but, in typical Bethesda fashion, it’s the calm before the storm.
First off, it occupies 53 GB of space. Why, especially when it’s about 25 GB on PC? For further comparison, Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition – a graphically superior title that many even doubted could run on the platform – is approximately 60.6 GB, which is only a bit more. It’s also only $10 extra for new players, but I digress.
The other big problem is that Skyrim Anniversary Edition runs at 30 frames per second on the Switch 2. Besides the fact that Bethesda touted “optimized performance,” it runs at the same frame rate as the Switch 1 version. This is the same performance as the Special Edition on PS4 and Xbox One – no word yet on whether there are dips on Switch 2 like those versions. But how Bethesda can’t get a 14-plus-year-old game running in 60 FPS on hardware that’s more than capable of the task is baffling. Further technical analysis also revealed that the resolution increase via DLSS in handheld mode is handled rather poorly and might as well not even matter.
So the price is absurd for new players, the installation size is downright heinous compared to other platforms, and the performance is disappointing given the game’s age. Don’t worry, though – there’s more.
Some users reported significant input delay with the Switch 2 version. One Reddit user noted that it was almost a “full second of delay after each input.” Other players noted the same in the comments, with one calling it “unplayable.” This is in both docked and handheld modes, and funnily enough, it matches issues with the Switch 1 version, where switching to third-person would cause the same issue.
What’s even stranger is the process of upgrading for physical edition owners on Switch 1. If you own the cartridge and downloaded the Anniversary Edition content, well, you won’t have the option to upgrade. One user revealed that you need to not download the latter. Instead, open the game after inserting the cart, then go to the store in-game, which should then prompt you to download the upgrade. So yes, Bethesda found a way to mess up the upgrade process. Oh, and it’s a separate title on the platform, so you’ll need to uninstall the Switch 1 version when done.
And if all that wasn’t enough, Skyrim Anniversary Edition on Switch 2 reportedly doesn’t support mods yet. What you see from the bundled Creation Club items is currently what you get.
I would be shocked at this point, but remember: This is the same Bethesda that dropped the Anniversary Edition of Fallout 4 and effectively broke the game on several platforms. And players, especially those who had curated their mod selections broken, had no choice but to download the update, even if they didn’t buy the absurdly priced Creations Bundle. Bethesda would release a patch that fixed many of the crashes, though it completely ignored the community begging for no more, especially when its Next-Gen Update caused all the same issues last year.
And while Skyrim is an older game that would require significant work to run properly on the Switch 2, why re-release the Anniversary Edition in the first place?
Not like Bethesda isn’t aware of how this constant, unabashed cash-grabbing comes across. Creative Director Matt Carofano, who served as lead artist on the original game, even admitted to Nintendo Life in a recent interview that it’s “a bit of a joke at this point how often we release Skyrim.” Nevertheless, he believes it’s “a great game. We want everyone to be able to play it in the best way possible.” Which is a fine sentiment – except where the company charges $60 for marginally improved visuals. Truly a highway robbery that would put Red Dead Redemption to shame.
At this point, you really have to wonder what’s going on at Bethesda. Starfield releasing as it did and having no major updates throughout this entire year till now, especially after a terrible paid expansion, is one thing (especially when significant improvements are seemingly on the way). The Elder Scrolls 6, announced in 2018 and still a long way off according to Todd Howard, is another. But messing up basic updates and ports for their older games? What possible justification could there be, aside from the fact that the studio doesn’t care enough about its fans, new and old, to ensure quality?
Why then should anyone believe it will put quality, first and foremost, for its upcoming releases? Will Starfield, when it eventually releases on PS5, also be a mess? Will its second expansion be any better than Shattered Space? At this point, what goodwill or benefit of the doubt has the company earned? Even those who peddled the “It just works” meme are tired of beating a dead horse.
But, and as much as I hate to admit, Howard is right. Tons of people still play Skyrim, even after all these years. Even on Steam, Skyrim Special Edition currently has the highest 24-hour player count among all its titles, beating Oblivion Remastered, Fallout 76, Fallout 4 and Starfield. Why shouldn’t Bethesda keep re-releasing the game when people will still buy it, which is a nice way of saying, “Why put in any effort when it’ll still sell?”
Despite my rambling, I’m honestly at a loss for words for this company. It’s gone beyond shock and disdain, creeping slowly towards apathy. Of course, you know what that means – now Bethesda needs to shadow-drop Starfield for the PS5 at The Game Awards and have that be a broken mess. Then the trifecta will be complete heading into 2026.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
