If you own aNintendo Switchand 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.
Can’t Afford Nintendo Switch 2? Nintendo Has a Product Called Switch 1
In response to criticisms of the Nintendo Switch 2’s price, Nintendo suggests that people should use the original Nintendo Switch consoles instead.
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
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Jul 14, 2025
Improved FPS and Resolution, new Star-Crossed World DLC campaign.
Super Mario Party Jamboree
Jun 23, 2025
Improved Resolution, GameShare support, Exclusive Jamboree TV mode that uses mouse controls, the camera, and the microphone.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Aug 13, 2025
Improved FPS, Resolution, and load times, HDR support, and Zelda Notes App support.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Improved FPS and Resolution.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
Improved load times, able to improve FPS or Resolution with quality or performance mode, HDR support, and mouse controls.
Super Mario Odyssey
Aug 23, 2025
Improved FPS and Resolution, GameShare support.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Jul 06, 2025
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
Jul 08, 2025
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
Jun 18, 2025
Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain
Aug 08, 2025
Jun 22, 2025
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
May 31, 2025
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Aug 06, 2025
Game Builder Garage
Jun 13, 2025
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
Aug 13, 2025
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Jul 29, 2025
Whimsical Starfall
Kirby and the Forgotten Landis 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.
WhileStar Allies had a ton of free DLCwith 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.
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 Jamboreewas 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.
Can We Get Anti-Aliasing?
Now, for the slightly more controversial paid upgrades,Tears of the Kingdomwill 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.
Smoothed Over
In an extremely similar fashion to Tears of the Kingdom,The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildis 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’re able to’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.
Unnecessary Gouging
Pokemon Legends Z-A
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 grabPokémon Legends: Z-Afor 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 thereturn of open-world explorationand catching mechanics, but is it “$70 to most likely run at an unstable 60 FPS” good? That’s up to you to decide.
Retro’s Rewind
I’m a massive Metroid fan, so seeingMetroid Prime 4finally 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.
Jump Up Super-Res
Now for the free titles, I thinkSuper Mario Odysseyis 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 usuallyhave 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.
10 Nintendo Platformers That Have Aged Like Fine Wine
I can never get enough of Super Mario World, and you can’t either.
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 speedrunsusually use an older version of the game with more out-of-bounds skips, but perhaps this performance boost could make the latest version competitive.
Magnified Detail
Of the Wii U ports I’d guess would get a boost, I thinkCaptain Toad: Treasure Trackerwould’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-crackingpuzzle-platformer where you’re able to’t jump, I’d highly recommend giving it a go.
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 lovehopping 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’re able to have that experience with anyone around the world.
