The cadence of strong third party releases is coming thicker and faster on Nintendo Switch 2.

While it was impressive seeing the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 run flawlessly, as well as Sonic x Shadow Generations and even another Ubisoft game in Star Wars Outlaws, it’s the current year on year releases that we’re really after. And we’ve just been served another in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

The brilliant return to form for the franchise took us by storm back in March – which feels a million months ago now – and not only brought the franchise to Feudal Japan which we’ve long awaited, but it really captivated players with its original majestic charms with a renewed focus on combat and exploration.

And now, somehow, Ubisoft have managed to get it on Switch 2 within the game’s first year, though it is minus the recently released Claws of Awaji expansion which will release early next year.

Just like the Star Wars Outlaws port, the fact it exists here at all is impressive. Although this time the concessions feel more noticeable. I’ll say this right off the bat – the game is better played in handheld and can look a bit washed out and sparse when docked. Having played this originally on Xbox Series X and then coming to it on Switch 2, you can see so many blurred and missing textures and for such a visually striking game, that’s a tough adjustment.

While it was a similar story when playing Star Wars Outlaws, the adjustments didn’t really take away from the experience too much and the optimisation for Switch 2 remains about as good as I’ve seen on any of the major third party releases, right next to Cyberpunk 2077. That said, what we’ve learned from Ubisoft is they’re willing to patch the games post release and one is already in the works for next week.

Although the rationale is a bit different this time as this patch is to fix an issue we did encounter more than a few times and that’s the game hard-crashing, preventing progress. It seems to affect people randomly, but for me there was a point very early on in the game, right before the Shadows logo drops and the game opens up fully, where the game hard-crashed four times in a row. I just could not get past it until I left the game for 24 hours and then it suddenly started working.

Definitely not ideal and frustrating it has affected so many players. Others seem to be having it hours into the game and some had very different patterns, so the stability seems erratic. Fortunately Ubisoft are already looking to address this so hopefully the game should be in a better state for it. That was certainly the case for Star Wars Outlaws, which just got better and better with every update, so it’ll be very exciting to see how Shadows evolves on Switch 2, and how it performs in the future.

For now, the game does manage to maintain a rock-solid 30fps in performance and as mentioned, the handheld play is pretty excellent. There’s some texture pop-in and the shadows do seem a bit jagged. The characters and expressions also seem a bit detached from the environment and the effect can be a tad jarring at times. But the beauty of Japan is as vibrant and eye-catching as ever and it runs incredibly smoothly.

And let’s not forget, this is a massive game. The scale of the map is as big as any other third party release in recent years and you now have the ability to play it natively in the palm of your hands. I can’t speak to the performance on Steam Deck or related hardware, but Switch 2 does an incredible job and it definitely adds to the excellent work Ubisoft have already done on the hardware.

The closest proximity to the Switch 2 release, as seems to be standard now, is Xbox Series S. And where on some games like Streetfighter VI, Switch 2 managed to outperform Microsoft’s hardware, you can see this has proven to be a taller task when you miss details like reflections in the water and reduced flow of grass in the wind.

When looking up close at details like trees, branches and surfaces, Shadows clearly isn’t at its best, but I think the key thing to note here is that this is one of the biggest, most ambitious and enjoyable open world games in recent years and it’s playable anywhere. In the palm of your hands. Which seems absolutely ridiculous to think about.

There’s touch-screen support in the menus which helps with ease of navigation and cross-progression is extremely welcome, meaning you can easily dive into your game wherever you are and get the best possible experience. It’s a massive install at over 60GB and obviously this is still without the 10 hour Claws of Awaji expansion, but I’ve had a fantastic time being able to pick up and play this magnificent game again and am incredibly impressed at both what Ubisoft have been able to achieve and Nintendo’s ability to get such a massive game on their hardware so soon.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows works incredibly in handheld play and while docked isn’t quite as impressive, the lure of this release has always been portability and with that, once again, Nintendo’s hardware shines.