'Zelda: Breath of the Wild' update boosts framerate, but issues remain

By Gabe Gurwin March 31, 2017

Zelda Breath of The Wild | 1.1.0 VS 1.1.1 Update | FRAMERATE FIXED

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a fantastic game, but it launched with framerate issues that varied from occasionally frustrating to nearly game-breaking. But less than a month after the game released alongside the Switch, Nintendo has released an update that appears to dramatically improve performance.

YouTube channel GameXplain posted a video comparing the new version of the game on Switch, 1.11, with a previous update in three different areas. The first of these, a field near the Old Man’s cave that you visit at the very start of Breath of the Wild, features a noticeably choppy framerate when running on the old version of the game, but these problems appear to be completely gone in the new version.

The second area tested, the Lakeside Stable, encountered even more noticeable framerate dips in the old version of the game, including a few sections that slow down enough to begin affecting the gameplay experience. These issues aren’t entirely fixed in the new update, but they’re much less severe.

The Korok Forest — the site of one of Breath of the Wild‘s most emotional moments, featured pretty extreme framerate issues in the previous version of the game, and these have been slightly improved in 1.11. However, they haven’t been completely solved, and given the amount of time and energy that players must spend to get to this point in the game, it should be one of Nintendo’s primary concerns going forward.

Users on popular gaming forum NeoGAF reported significant improvements in problematic areas on Nintendo Switch, though some of those playing the Wii U version still experienced framerate and slowdown problems. The problems still appear to be more severe when the Nintendo Switch is docked, as well, likely due to the increased resolution used for televisions.

Have you encountered any technical issues in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Let us know in the comments!

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Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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