If you own a Nintendo Switch and a ton of games for it, most of those titles will still work the same on the Switch 2. But a select few will get special treatment and something new for the system too.
This usually comes in the form of performance upgrades, raising 30 FPS titles to 60, and boosting the resolution to support 4k or more reliably run at 1080p, which is especially nice for the more unstable titles.
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Some games will get a bit more special treatment, with added GameShare support, allowing you to share your games with friends online and play together as if they owned the title—a feature rightfully returning from the DS.
A few games are paid upgrades, though, and they offer something entirely new on top of the performance upgrade. This is usually only $10 if it’s just a performance increase, but it goes up to $20 when they add new content.
The list of upgradeable Switch games is likely to increase when third parties get their hands on the feature, as these are just the titles Nintendo has confirmed will have Switch 2 upgrades.
Every Switch Game Upgrade
Game Title
Release Date
OpenCritic Score
Additions
Price
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Aug 28, 2025
85
Improved FPS and Resolution, new Star-Crossed World DLC campaign.
$20
Super Mario Party Jamboree
Jul 24, 2025
81
Improved Resolution, GameShare support, Exclusive Jamboree TV mode that uses mouse controls, the camera, and the microphone.
$20
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Jun 5, 2025
96
Improved FPS, Resolution, and load times, HDR support, and Zelda Notes App support.
$10
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Jun 5, 2025
96
Improved FPS, Resolution, and load times, HDR support, and Zelda Notes App support.
$10
Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Late 2025
TBD
Improved FPS and Resolution.
$10
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
2025
TBD
Improved load times, able to improve FPS or Resolution with quality or performance mode, HDR support, and mouse controls.
$10
Super Mario Odyssey
Oct 27, 2017
97
Improved FPS and Resolution, GameShare support.
Free
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Jul 13, 2018
82
Improved FPS and Resolution, GameShare support.
Free
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
Jun 5, 2020
81
Improved FPS and Resolution, GameShare support.
Free
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
Feb 12, 2021
89
Improved FPS and Resolution, GameShare support.
Free
Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain
Dec 3, 2021
73
Improved FPS and Resolution, GameShare support.
Free
ARMS
Jun 16, 2017
78
Improved FPS and Resolution.
Free
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
Jan 11, 2019
79
Improved FPS and Resolution.
Free
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Sep 20, 2019
87
Improved FPS and Resolution.
Free
Game Builder Garage
Jun 11, 2021
77
Improved FPS and Resolution.
Free
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
Nov 18, 2022
71
Improved FPS and Resolution.
Free
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Sep 26, 2024
85
Improved FPS and Resolution.
Free
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Whimsical Starfall
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is my favorite game of 2022, and that was a stacked year. It’s a real tribute to HAL’s hard work adapting Kirby into 3D, and they stuck the landing on their first try.
On the original Switch, it ran at a locked 30 FPS with enemies moving at low framerates when they were further away. While I found that rather charming, it was a bit jarring, and everything now will run at a smooth 60 FPS.
This game was rather notorious for never getting a patch, because it never needed one. While that was an awesome feat in the current gaming landscape, I certainly don’t mind a new patch dropping for a full-on DLC campaign.
While
Star Allies had a ton of free DLC
with a very short-lived extra campaign, Star-Crossed World looks to be a real expansion of every level in the base game, all with new gimmicks and level design.
Super Mario Party Jamboree
Don’t Let The Party Die
The Mario Party series was in a pretty huge slump for a long while, but after Superstars brought back the classic mechanics in a promising new package, Super Mario Party Jamboree was able to deliver something great.
We’ve ditched the stupid car mechanic forever, finally have boards that aren’t made with the Line tool in Photoshop, and way more characters than ever before, making for a really great package.
I find the mini-games pretty lacking, all things considered, but the new Jamboree TV add-on looks a little promising in that department if you want to shell out $55 for a Switch 2 Camera.
It’s not entirely clear whether the camera is required, but given how much it’s been used in the marketing for this expansion, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. It still looks neat, even if it’s probably one big gimmick for $20.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Can We Get Anti-Aliasing?
Now, for the slightly more controversial paid upgrades, Tears of the Kingdom will be a $10 payment to finally get a stable 60 FPS, higher resolution, faster loading times, and access to an app that seems… terrible.
The app lets you take notes, and has a built-in GPS—because you can’t just use the map that’s already built into the game, you instead need annoying text-to-speech directions to guide you everywhere.
For Tears of the Kingdom in particular, you can use the app to share autobuild schematics with others. Still, one of my favorite parts of being around when this game released was manually building stuff I saw online and making a Ford F-150.
For me, this app is a useless, easy-to-create addition to try and justify tacking on a $10 price tag, even when most of the free upgrades receive very similar boosts to performance, because Zelda is a game that needs it.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Smoothed Over
In an extremely similar fashion to Tears of the Kingdom, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is another upgrade that will set you back $10 to get a resolution bump and a smooth 60 FPS, plus the same app.
Unlike that game, though, you can’t share autobuild schematics, and there’s no feature equivalent to it, making this worth even less. You can essentially get this experience by looking up guides.
Why did they make a whole app for this? I wish I knew. You can also pretty handily emulate Breath of the Wild at unlimited framerate and resolution, which has been a thing for almost as long as the game has been out.
That said, the game needed this framerate bump. Breath of the Wild tends to drop the ball on framerate in areas with lots of grass, so instead of dropping to 10 FPS, we can finally have a smooth 60 on console.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Unnecessary Gouging
For games that aren’t released yet, you might wonder why Nintendo would make upgrade packs instead of making the game $70 flat and giving you the Switch 2 version for free. I also wonder why the hell they’re doing that.
This convoluted solution means you can grab Pokémon Legends: Z-A for a crisp $60 on the original Switch. It’ll run terribly due to the curse of being a modern Pokémon game, so you can pay $10 to fix their allergy to optimization.
This is the only Switch 2 upgrade I’m aware of that solely increases performance and resolution but still costs money for some god-forsaken reason, and even though I loved Legends Arceus, this makes Z-A really hard to justify.
The game looks good, with the Xenoblade-style combat and the
return of open-world exploration
and catching mechanics, but is it “$70 to most likely run at an unstable 60 FPS” good? That’s up to you to decide.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
Retro’s Rewind
I’m a massive Metroid fan, so seeing Metroid Prime 4 finally scheduled to release this year after 8+ years in development hell is awesome. While I haven’t been a huge fan of the $10 upgrades, this one feels worthwhile.
The game already looks incredible on the shoddy original Switch hardware, and it looks better than most PS5 games on the Switch 2, able to run at 4k and 60 FPS, or 1080p and 120 FPS, both of which look incredible.
It feels like Retro Studios is incredibly capable of pushing Nintendo’s hardware to its absolute limits, and this is a Prime example, on top of adding mouse controls that seem straight out of PrimeHack.
I still don’t get why they don’t just release the game for $70 and make it a free upgrade, but either way, the $10 upgrade feels well worth the price for smooth and snappy aiming alone, on top of the visuals getting even better.
Super Mario Odyssey
Jump Up Super-Res
Now for the free titles, I think Super Mario Odyssey is one of the best games on this list that didn’t need to be here. It already ran at a locked 1080p 60fps—the best the original Switch could do—so the boost isn’t super noticeable.
There’s the addition of GameShare, but I think 3D Mario games usually
have pretty middling multiplayer
, with Odyssey being no exception. That said, this is still an excuse to return to one of the best games ever made.
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Platformers do tend to benefit from a framerate boost, as it reduces input lag, and given the trend with performance boosts, it’s rather likely that load times will be significantly reduced on top of that.
This is rather interesting to me,
as Super Mario Odyssey speedruns
usually use an older version of the game with more out-of-bounds skips, but perhaps this performance boost could make the latest version competitive.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Magnified Detail
Of the Wii U ports I’d guess would get a boost, I think Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker would’ve been the last on my list. It performs perfectly, and the framerate really doesn’t matter for a typically slow-going puzzle game.
That, and the multiplayer is something I completely forgot existed before writing this, despite having played through this entire game before. From what I know, it’s just an unnecessary addition that makes levels far easier.
I think Treasure Tracker is a great game, and I absolutely love the puzzles contained within it, but I don’t think a performance and resolution bump is supremely necessary—unless you are obsessed with those two things.
All that said, it is a free upgrade that does objectively improve the game, so if you haven’t given this silly little diorama-cracking
puzzle-platformer where you can’t jump
, I’d highly recommend giving it a go.
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
Renegade Re-release
If you know me, you know I love Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics. It’s just a collection of board games, but board games are awesome, and I’ve probably booted this game up a hundred times.
I absolutely love
hopping on Pool with my girlfriend
, Renegade is as great as Othello since they’re both the same game, and every game in this pack has some merit to it unless your name is Bowling.
I’m really happy to see this is the de facto game they’re promoting for use with GameShare, as it makes convincing online friends to play whatever game comes to mind way easier since they no longer need to buy the game to join you.
There was already the Clubhouse Games Guest Pass application that lets you play locally with anyone without needing to own the game, but now you can have that experience with anyone around the world.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
Vibrant Flagpoles
I think Super Mario 3D World is a great,
really underrated 3D Mario game
that breaks the mold of all its predecessors by having a genuinely fun multiplayer mode, as well as looking incredible a decade after release.
This is absolutely a game I think will benefit from the performance bump, as both games can feel a bit compromised with the grand visuals they try to go for at times, especially when you’re playing Bowser’s Fury.
On top of that, getting to jump into multiplayer with anyone, even if they don’t own the game, is a great thing. The online multiplayer in this game is questionable at best, so I’m hopeful that GameShare will be a mild improvement.
Though Bowser’s Fury doesn’t have the best multiplayer mode ever made, it’s still a great side game that’ll really benefit from the boost since it often dropped frames or looked a little crusty in parts, given its ambitions.
Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain
Masqueraded Mathematics
I don’t think I ever saw much of anything about Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain before. I don’t even remember Nintendo advertising it at all, but I suppose they remembered it exists since it’s getting a free upgrade.
I assume the main point of this is adding GameShare, since it’s a very multiplayer-focused learning game, and I can’t imagine a single soul on this earth cares about playing this at a higher resolution and frame rate.
That said, if you own this game, every single friend you have probably doesn’t own this game, and now you can convince them to play it with you since they don’t have to drop $30 on memorizing numbers.
I’d imagine this is best for parents who want their kids to play an educational game with their friends, but I can’t see just about any other audience for this, other than people with a very specific hyper fixation.
ARMS
Lift Yourself Up
Now for the games that haven’t had GameShare confirmed and are simply upgraded for the Switch 2, likely with just a performance and resolution bump without any additional features. ARMS sure does exist.
I’m genuinely shocked this isn’t a game with GameShare as a confirmed addition, as it’s entirely focused on multiplayer fights with other players, and being able to make other people hop on at a whim would fit perfectly.
That said, from what I remember from playing this rather shallow experience 8 years ago, it wasn’t the most performant game ever. There were frequent hiccups in framerate, and many times dynamic resolution made it look ugly.
All that should be perfectly remedied with the performance boost, and as it’s a fighting game, the FPS boost is again quite helpful for reducing input delay and giving Switch 2 players a slight competitive edge.
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
Mind-Numbingly Enjoyable
I think it’s genuinely baffling to me that New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is on this list but still isn’t one of the games with GameShare confirmed. Hell, why isn’t Super Mario Bros. Wonder one of them?
Both of these games have four-player multiplayer at their core, and especially with Wonder, you can’t really have the local multiplayer experience online. It feels like that game is getting shafted really badly.
All of that rambling aside, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has one of the worst titles in video game history, but it’s a pretty fun time. It’s definitely a junk food game that doesn’t hold much artistic value, but is fun anyway.
I didn’t particularly need this entirely 2D platformer using pre-rendered 3D models to run at 4K and 120 FPS, but it’s a completely harmless performance boost, so I’m not going to be mad at it.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Pieced Together
For a game that genuinely needed the performance bump, Link’s Awakening is a great example. For a remake of a Game Boy game, you’d think this game would perform just fine,
but it was a really bumpy road
.
Constant frame dips, incredibly inconsistent frame times, and a general lack of optimization lead to this game just feeling a bit gross, even if you don’t have the eye to see the framerate going out of wack.
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This makes the FPS boost a genuine godsend that’ll boost this to be at least a constant 60fps, if not a constant 120. The resolution bump is also quite nice, as this game is deceptively detailed.
If you haven’t given the Link’s Awakening remake a shot, I’d absolutely recommend it once it gets this boost. It’s a great Zelda game that felt pretty off before. Now that it’ll likely feel great, it’ll be one of the best in the series.
Game Builder Garage
Make It Yourself, Then
I’ll be so for real with you—I have absolutely no idea why Game Builder Garage is among the list of performance-boosted games. It’s essentially a very beginner-friendly game engine, but it never ran too badly.
In my experience, the most complex games made with this could dip the framerate a bit, and I suppose that was enough for Nintendo to try and address things, even if it was a really minor hit to the game.
I suppose it’s a completely fine change, and the increased resolution could be pretty nice for the games with a ton of visual effects going off all the time. Plus, 120 FPS is always nice for the input delay reduction alone.
If I had to speculate a little bit, I’d say this might add a Switch 2 mode where you can breeze past the original, incredibly restrictive node limit, leading to far more in-depth and advanced games than before.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
Finally, Some Quality
Can you spot the shiny Dedenne?
Easily the most exciting and deserving game of these performance boosts, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet released to pretty awful reception due to constant lagging in framerate, and generally just looking a bit ugly.
If you were able to get past that, alongside all the bugs at launch, you’d find a Pokémon game that
genuinely matches the classics in story
, as well as being a pretty fun adaption of the Legends Arceus style into mainline Pokémon.
I’d say it’s underrated, but given most game reviews are done either before or on launch day, I really can’t blame anyone for the terrible reception. Now that it’ll hopefully run really well, I hope more people give it a genuine, honest try.
It does put into perspective why the Legends Z-A price looks rather ridiculous, as this game is getting the exact same treatment for free, and is likely only a free upgrade because it’s an old game that got panned for playing at 12 FPS at times.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Brain Pain Reduction
Just like Link’s Awakening, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom performs really badly. It’s an incredible-looking, brand-new Zelda game with even more detail, but the framerate is genuinely terrible.
It’ll constantly fluctuate between 30-60, the frame pacing is never consistent, and I’ve seen people play it and get a headache from how inconsistent it feels, sometimes being even worse than Tears of the Kingdom.
I’d be very happy if this boost just made the game a consistent 1080p 60fps, but the prospect of playing it at an even higher resolution and framerate is even better and makes this an easy pickup for Switch 2 players.
It does make me question why they even released this game on the original Switch if they could’ve spent another year optimizing the hell out of it and make it perform way better on both systems, but I suppose hindsight is 20/20.
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