New Breath of the Wild Patch Improves Frame Rate Issues

Nintendo has released an update for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which reportedly resolves many of the game’s frame rate issues. The patch is available on both Switch and Wii U.

The patch notes for update 1.1.1 don’t fully–or even partially–explain what the update actually fixes. The only note simply says, “Adjustments have been made to make for a more pleasant gaming experience.” Yeah, okay, Nintendo.

The below video shows gameplay from before and after the new update, and the frame rate definitely seems smoother.

Frame rate issues have been among the few real complaints regarding Breath of the Wild. Certain areas, such as Kakariko Village and Korok Forest, have been death zones for frame rates for many players. Additionally, high action situations, like battles, rain storms, and horse-riding, have all been known to drop frames constantly.

The dropped frames have not been reported to hinder game experience in ways like causing a battle to be lost, but the frame rate issues are definitely distracting. Sometimes, the game completely freezes for a second after I break a weapon when attacking an enemy or kill an enemy.

Most of these dropped frames have occurred in docked mode while playing on a television. Breath of the Wild definitely runs smoother in handheld mode, but this recent patch should make the distracting dropped frames much less frequent.

Players on Reddit, on NeoGAF, a Kotaku reporter, and a slew of people on social media have all reported dramatically improved frame rates across the board in Breath of the Wild.

One Reddit user said, “Went to a forest outside of the plateau with two Moblins where I had major FPS drops. Now have a consistent 30 there. It seems that there are still specific areas that tank your frames (the first cliff at the plateau, Kakariko, ect.) but I’ve never had that stable FPS during combat while randomly out in the world.”

This patch brings much welcomed improvements to an otherwise phenomenal game.

Have you noticed other improvements to Breath of the Wild since the update? Let us know in the comments!