Last week, the RuneScape team Jagex released its new open-world survival game RuneScape: Dragonwilds on Switch 2.
We reported earlier this week how many players were experiencing blurry visuals with this version of the game, and the British developer has now acknowledged these problems in a lengthy message to the game’s community.
The good news is the developer is making a “long-term commitment” to the Nintendo version and will be improving the visuals over time. It admits, during the development cycle, the priority was framerate stability over resolution and visual fidelity”, and it feels where it currently is with the frame rate is a “good start”.
While there won’t be one singular update to address these issues, there will be “incremental” changes and improvements over time. Here’s the entire message to the game’s Switch 2 playerbase:
Hello adventurers.
The Switch 2 build is not where we want it to be today, visually. As a Dev team, and as Nintendo fans, we are not fully satisfied with where the game is on Nintendo Switch 2 and we are committed to work on improving the visuals. Dragonwilds support is a long-term commitment for Jagex, and so is the Switch 2 version of our game.
We have had to make a range of decisions around the Switch 2 along the development journey, and we have prioritised framerate stability over resolution and visual fidelity. We think where we are in terms of framerate is a good start, but now we must continue working harder to make the visuals match your (and our) expectations. The blurriness some of you have commented on stems from a lower output resolution that is currently too low when running the game. We have been working, and continue to work, on improving the picture quality – but we want to be transparent with you about the fact that it will take time.
We, as a team, have identified a mix of short-term optimisations (a few weeks’ worth of work) and longer-term architectural investment involving a move to a newer version of Unreal Engine (5.8). We currently run on UE 5.6 and were unable to upgrade to 5.7 during the thorough processes of debug and certification across all platforms. Since then, 5.8 has released, and both bring a range of optimisations for chipsets as well as the introduction of Lumen Lite, which we hope will benefit lower spec hardware and the Switch 2 version in particular. This new engine overhaul is a longer investment, but it’s one we are totally committed to, to ensure that everyone’s experience of Dragonwilds is the best it can be.
What this means is that the improvements we make will be incremental. We would love nothing more than a singular update which drastically improves everything at once. What we can promise is that we will update the game whenever we find that we’ve made visual improvements. Expect this to be in the form of several patches throughout the future.
We’ve been in contact with the Nintendo team about this, the existing timeline of how our patches are processed, and exploring updating our Nintendo eShop. We’ve provided a range of assets that are no longer in parity with other storefronts but are instead captured on simulated hardware settings matching the specifications of the Switch 2 including display resolution, as was the case with the Nintendo Direct trailer.We’re committed to making sure that Dragonwilds looks and plays its best on handheld consoles alongside our other platforms, and we hope you’ll continue to give us feedback and support as we carry our journey on beyond 1.0.
Thank you, adventurers.
Jagex has also confirmed it’s rolling out another hotfix this Friday, bumping the experience up to Version 1.0.0.5. You can see the patch notes on the Dragonwilds website. We’ll also have a Dragonwilds review up on the site at some point in the future.
