Still Broken on PS5, Starfield Now Targets Switch 2

Somewhere inside Bethesda, someone looked at Starfield's PS5 launch, a release so rough that players have been calling it "unplayable," and decided the next move was to start working on a Switch 2 port. That's not a joke. As spotted by Universo Nintendo, Starfield has received an official rating from the Taiwan Entertainment Software Rating Information Board, which is about as close to a confirmation as you get before an actual announcement.

Bethesda hasn't said anything publicly about a Switch 2 version. But Taiwan ratings board leaks have a near-perfect track record for accuracy, and Microsoft already has a clear pipeline of Bethesda ports heading to Nintendo's new hardware. Oblivion Remastered is slated for Switch 2 later in 2026, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle arrives next month. Starfield slotting into that lineup makes business sense on paper. In practice, I'm struggling to understand how this is a priority.

Let me lay out the situation. Starfield launched on PS5 just last week. Within days, players were reporting constant crashes, bugs, and performance issues severe enough that "unplayable" became the dominant word in community threads. Bethesda acknowledged the problems earlier this week, saying it had "narrowed" the issues "down to a small number of causes" and was working on fixes. That's fine as far as crisis communication goes, but the game is still broken right now for a significant number of PS5 owners who paid full price for it.

And the sales reflect the reception. Data analyst Rhys Elliott at Alinea Analytics estimated that Starfield sold roughly 140,000 copies on PS5 in its first week., this is a game that previously reported over 15 million players on Xbox and PC. 140,000 on PlayStation is not the number you want from what should be one of Bethesda's biggest port events. Elliott went further, suggesting Crimson Desert is "on track to overtake Starfield's total lifetime copies sold by the end of the year." Whether you chalk the weak sales up to the broken launch, port fatigue, or both, it paints a grim picture.

Skyrim Already Warned Us

Here's what makes the Switch 2 leak feel almost absurd. Bethesda already went through this exact cycle on Nintendo's new console with Skyrim. A game from 2011. The Switch 2 version launched with input lag, a framerate locked at 30fps, and performance that the community generously described as running like "wet ass." Bethesda eventually patched it into a decent state, but the damage to player trust was done. One Reddit user in the Skyrim subreddit summed it up perfectly: "So is Skyrim Switch 2 just a worse performing version of Skyrim Switch 1? Is that the upgrade?"

Now imagine Starfield on that same hardware. This is a game that can't hold 60fps on PS5 right now. The Switch 2 is a capable machine for its form factor, priced at £395.99, but it is not competing with PS5 or Series X on raw power. The compromises required to get Starfield running on it would be enormous, and Bethesda's recent track record with ports does not inspire confidence that those compromises will be handled well.

I keep coming back to the same question: why is this happening before the PS5 version is fixed? Bethesda is a big studio with multiple teams, and I understand that a Switch 2 port would likely be handled by a separate group or an external partner. But are terrible. You have paying PS5 customers dealing with crashes right now, and the message they're getting is that Bethesda is already lining up the next platform to ship on. It sends a signal about where the priority is, and it isn't with the people who already bought the game.

Meanwhile, Capcom is showing everyone how multiplatform launches should work. Pragmata drops across PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch 2 simultaneously this week, with console versions going live at local midnight and a global PC launch on Steam. Twenty minutes of Switch 2 gameplay have already been shown publicly. No leaked ratings boards, no broken versions on other platforms, just a coordinated release across every SKU at once. Bethesda could take notes. No release window for Starfield on Switch 2 has been given, but given the current state of the PS5 version, I'd argue the timeline is the least of Bethesda's problems.