PAX Aus Hands-on: Hyrule Warriors, Elden Ring and Borderlands 4 on Switch 2

PAX Aus has wrapped up for another year; this year was more exciting for me because the Switch drought is over! Since last October, not only has the Switch 2 been announced and released, but Nintendo has brought their large booth back with plenty of recently released and to-be-released games. A few games are already out, such as Mario Kart World, Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2, Hades II, and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Some are very much on the horizon, with Pokémon Legends Z-A and Persona 3: Reload out this month.

What was even more impressive this year, and likely a bit frustrating for PAXgoers, is that the booth lines were absolutely packed! Pretty much as soon as the hall opened, the lines for the games on show were frequently capped with “come back in 30 minutes” signs, while other signs indicated the current wait in the line would be between 1-2 hours. Usually, Sunday would calm down with a smaller crowd and people heading home early, but not this Sunday! Even at 4 pm on Sunday, the lines were still sitting at the 1 hour + mark. It should serve as a testament to how much people really want to check out the Switch 2 and the games on the horizon.

Hyrule Warriors – Age of Imprisonment

Now I am a sucker for the Dynasty Warriors spinoffs, whether it’s One Piece, the Hyrule Warrior games, or any of the other ones that I’m blanking on right now. I am looking forward to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, so I definitely wanted to make sure I had a go at the demo to see if it played as well as it looked in Nintendo Direct.

As with the other games, this is just a demo, and this game is still not due out for about another month, but it ran nicely. It definitely looks and runs better than the previous Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, but it’s a bit unfair comparing the two because that was running on the original Switch hardware. Additionally, it also really depends on your expectations of a Dynasty Warriors game. Age of Calamity is hardly the only Musou game to struggle on the Switch. So immediately, Age of Imprisonment runs much better and looks better too. It can handle more enemies on screen and, yeah, it just generally felt better to play. For the demo, it felt more like a story-based mission as opposed to having the giant playing field where you’re having to capture the different bases around the field and take control of them by the commanding officer units.

The demo started with Zelda and her new friends Rauru and Mineru, falling in line with events in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where Zelda is transported back to the past… to the Age of Imprisonment, otherwise known as The Imprisonment Wars. There was the opportunity to control all three available characters; Zelda’s light-based attacks were pretty fun, knocking back groups of enemies. Mineru has Zonai Construct-based attacks, which was interesting to see in action in contrast to Zelda’s attacks. Part of the combos had Mineru conjuring a construct vehicle almost like a monster truck to plough into the enemy groups.

The demo also gave a good overview of how the Zonai items can work. You can now pull out the different Zonai items like the flamethrower and use it to help take out large groups of enemies. Not only did it devastate large groups, but it could be placed down on the ground to separate your own attacks. You still have the Zonai battery to limit how much you use these items, but you can recharge this with items you carry. Your normal and heavy attacks do a pretty good job of decimating through the cannon fodder swarming your way. On top of that, there are special attacks when you have enough charge, as well as Sync Attacks that can be used when close to your allies. In the demo, I was able to create a giant Zonai Construct with multiple arms for absolutely smashing the enemy. I can only imagine there will be much wilder Sync attacks to come as your group of allies grows.

As for what the demo was about, it appeared to have Zelda and friends exploring the depths underneath Hyrule. This version didn’t seem to be overtaken with gloom; however, it was filled with enemies to destroy and it appeared to be introducing the characters to the sentient Zonai constructs as they seemingly mistake Zelda and crew for hostiles. I am definitely keen to play this game in full this November and see how the story of Hyrule’s past plays out with Zelda at the helm.

Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition

Seeing that Elden Ring was being demoed, was an immediate must-see for me. After being shown off at the launch and having previously been available at other game shows, I finally got to have a go at Elden Ring (Tarnished Edition) on the Switch 2. Remembering how the brief snippet of footage looked at the launch it’s been hard to know how it was going to be running, also once again being mindful that this would be a demo build. As with most of the demos on the floor they time out after a certain period of time, so I got a good 15 minutes to have a quick look around. Fortunately the demo starts after the tutorial area, before the world opens up with the Erdtree looming in the distance. I’ve gotta say it ran pretty well on the handheld. Being on the smaller screen it probably helps hide any visual downgrades compared to the Xbox series X or PS5 versions, but then that’s not realistic to expect anyways. 

I was quickly reminded that I was playing Elden Ring by being killed within the first few minutes by the large Tree Sentinel patrolling around. In my defence  I thought I’d snuck around it but no. Then I was reminded that I absolutely was not prepared to even attempt to fight it. After I resurrected back in I had better luck, trying to make the most of the demo time by running through a camp and taking out a few enemy soldiers. It was nice to see that the game or at least this part of the game ran pretty smoothly or at least smoothly as you might consider 30 frames per second. I did enjoy sneaking around, as well as running and wildly slashing with the game holding up the entire time. I’m looking forward to seeing how Elden Ring Tarnised Edition plays when it comes out some time in the future. 

Borderlands 4 (Switch 2)

Borderlands 4 on the Switch 2 was a surprise last-minute announcement for appearing at the Nintendo Booth. It’s unexpected because the game has been delayed indefinitely, and no one has known what it really currently looks like until now. I actually thought that it was a game they had forgotten to edit out of the line up promotions! I was happy to be proven wrong.

Borderlands 4 was available in TV mode and with the current delays it’s hard to tell how close to the intended release version the game is currently, so fingers crossed it’s a fairly early build. I’ve been waiting to play Borderlands 4 on the Switch 2 so unfortunately I hadn’t had a chance to get used to any changes for the new game, or the new characters. Although it didn’t really matter that much, as I was immediately surprised at what I saw. 

Borderlands is known for its Cel Shaded visuals, and Borderlands 4 on other platforms looked quite detailed. For the Switch 2 in this demo build it felt like the majority of that detail was gone. Enemies at times were just framed with black outlines, no detail to fill in their features. The world looked basic, at best maybe pared back to how the first game looked way back when. The area the demo took place in felt like a more contained area.

While I wouldn’t say that the game ran smoothly, it also didn’t run badly. The stripped back graphics made it a little hard to tell, on top of the character movement feeling sluggish to an extent. It didn’t necessarily feel that it was tied to frame rate but it definitely didn’t feel as kinetic as all of the promotional material I’ve seen leading up to now. 

On one hand I was surprised that even as a demo that this game was meant to launch this month potentially in this rough a state. Then on the other hand they’ve obviously delayed it for a reason. Regardless, I’m curious that the demo even saw the light of day. 

Given we know that the Switch 2 is potentially comparable to the Xbox series S in performance, it is a shame to see this game in this state. I can only hope that this is an earlier build or that the delays will only help get this game into shape. 

That’s it for the Nintendo booth demos, stay tuned for a look at some of the Indies on show targeting the Switch and Switch 2.