Nintendo Switch 2 demoed with a “souped up” ‘Breath Of The Wild’, alleges report

Two reports allege that a Nintendo Switch 2 was shown off with games like The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild at Gamescom 2023.

Both Eurogamer and Video Games Chronicle attest that the console appeared at the event. The former’s report stated that developer presentations took place in private – partners saw what a “souped up” version of Breath Of The Wild would look like on “beefier target specs”.

Sources who spoke to the latter said The Matrix Awakens, the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo from Epic Games, was running on one Switch 2 featuring “visuals comparable to Sony‘s and Microsoft’s current-gen consoles”.

Interestingly, Video Games Chronicle continued to claim that the demo was using deep learning super sampling, a technological element that is exclusive to Nvidia. It noted that Nintendo filed patents for its own form of super sampling in early 2020.

Earlier this year, there were rumours that the development kits for the company’s next console had been sent to “key partner studios” in order to be ready for a launch in the second half of 2024.

Eurogamer now asserts that Nintendo is wanting to launch the Switch 2 sooner than this. On the other hand, the company itself has not acknowledged either of the two reports and so there is no official confirmation of the existence of the console and Nintendo’s intentions for it at the moment.

That aforementioned report on the development kits features an LCD screen rather than an OLED one to cut costs and allow for storage for technically advanced titles – things similar to The Matrix Awakens.

Elsewhere, Gamescom director Tim Endres shared that this year’s event “hit new record highs in several areas”, and how it manages to remain relevant when other events have fallen out of favour.