Report / Published 2026-10-31

Modern Warfare 4 on Switch 2: 60fps multiplayer, 30fps campaign, 88GB install

Digital Foundry's verdict on the Switch 2 port: a steady 30fps campaign, 60fps multiplayer that dips into the 50s, and a dynamic 900p that can fall to 450p.

A wooden desk at night holding a large monitor that shows an abstract orange and blue landscape, with a keyboard, a game controller, a speaker, a small second screen and a mouse arranged across the surface under warm lamplight.
Conceptual editorial illustration; not a screenshot or a frame from the game.

THE SHORT VERSION

  • Digital Foundry's analysis, summarised by Nintendo Life and Nintendo Everything, puts Modern Warfare 4 on Switch 2 at 30fps in the campaign, 60fps in multiplayer and 40fps in DMZ on a 120Hz display.
  • Resolution is dynamic: 900p docked in DLSS mode with a 450p floor, a 1080p target with SMAA, and 720p handheld dropping to 360p. Bump mapping, screen-space reflections and campaign self-shadows were removed.
  • Ray-marched smoke, rasterised global illumination, glass destruction and the New York mission's NPC density survived. Digital Foundry calls it a job well done; multiplayer still drops into the 50s and the high 40s.

The frame rate targets

Digital Foundry has published its technical analysis of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on Switch 2, the first Call of Duty on a Nintendo platform in more than a decade. Nintendo Life sums up the split by mode: 30 frames per second in the campaign, 60 in competitive multiplayer, and 40 in the DMZ extraction mode if a 120Hz display is connected. Nintendo Life dates the previous Call of Duty on a Nintendo console to the Wii U era, which sets what this version has to prove.

Nintendo Everything carries the same figures from the same analysis and fills in how well they hold. The campaign stays at 30 except for drops during the Paris shootout, and DMZ stays at 40. Multiplayer is the one mode that moves, falling into the 50s and occasionally the high 40s. That split is familiar from earlier generations of weaker hardware, and it is why the multiplayer figure matters more than the campaign one. The 60fps target is what makes the port feel like the same game, and it is also the target that slips.

Two upscalers, two trade-offs

Resolution depends on the anti-aliasing option selected. The port ships with an in-house option by default and also offers DLSS and SMAA T2X. In DLSS mode the game runs at a dynamic 900p when docked and falls to 450p in the worst cases; SMAA resolves to a higher 1080p target. Handheld runs at a dynamic 720p with a low of 360p in heavier missions. The in-house option is the default, so the two named upscalers are a choice rather than the baseline. Digital Foundry found no visual difference between docked and handheld modes.

The trade between the two upscalers is legible in the numbers. DLSS holds detail better in motion and in noisy areas that SMAA struggles with, and pays for that with a softer image overall. Multiplayer and DMZ get a separate SMAA setting that does not fix the transparency artefacts. Both figures are dynamic, so they move with the scene rather than sitting at a fixed value. Two options, neither of which closes the gap with PS5.

What was cut

Several effects did not make the trip. Bump mapping is gone. Screen-space reflections went with it. Self-shadowing is removed in the campaign and restored in multiplayer at a much lower resolution. Switch 2 also swaps level of detail more abruptly at fixed distances, drops transparency effects, and thins grass density in some missions. The asset resolution gap shows most clearly when the camera drops low. None of those cuts changes a gunfight. Together they change what a street looks like.

The install is smaller as well: 88GB against 120GB on PS5. That decides whether the download fits on a console with limited storage, and it arrives next to the visual reductions rather than instead of them. Modern Warfare 4 also shipped without Game Pass access, so the 88GB is a purchase for most players rather than a subscription download. A smaller install is the one cut that helps the platform rather than the frame rate.

What survived

The systems that make a Call of Duty level feel like one are intact. Ray-marched smoke simulation is in, along with new rasterised global illumination, interactive smoke volumes, glass destruction, light projection on walls, and the NPC density of the New York mission. Smoke and destruction are the two systems players notice in a firefight, and both are here. Digital Foundry's verdict is that the port is a job well done, with the important elements in place.

Keeping those elements also keeps cross-platform play fair. A Switch 2 player in a lobby with PS5 and Xbox players sees the same smoke, the same destruction and the same number of bodies in a street, even where shadows and reflections are thinner. Apex Legends' cross-play matchmaking tests show how much of that fairness now depends on matchmaking rules rather than on the hardware. Matchmaking decides who you meet. The port decides what you both see.

The costs of 30 and 40

The costs are specific. Input latency rises at 30 and 40 frames per second, and Nintendo Life notes that it makes holding a kill-to-death ratio harder in multiplayer. Pre-rendered cutscenes hitch, though the same hitch appears on other platforms and gameplay itself is unaffected. The locked rates are stable, which is the trade on offer: a steady 30 rather than an unstable 40 or 50. A locked 30 is easier to aim with than a fluctuating 40, which is why the trade holds up.

Nintendo Life's review of the Switch 2 version scored it 9/10 and called it best-in-class bombast that does not shortchange Nintendo players. That is a judgement about the game, not a measurement of the port. The measurement is the frame rate dropping into the 50s during firefights, and the two should stay separate.

What to watch after launch

The first thing to watch is whether patches raise the multiplayer floor. A drop into the high 40s during a firefight is the kind of thing a patch can address, and nothing in the analysis says it will. Xbox's hardware sales fell 14% in its latest quarter, which makes a Call of Duty that runs on Nintendo hardware a different release than it was ten years ago. Nothing in either report suggests a second Switch 2 Call of Duty is in production.

The second is what Activision says next. The company told Nintendo Everything that Nintendo is all in on Call of Duty for Switch 2, which is a statement about intent rather than a schedule. Until a second title is dated, this port is the evidence for that claim, and its numbers are decent rather than ideal. Intent is cheap. A date is not.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. Digital Foundry Delivers Its Tech Verdict On Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 On Switch 2
  2. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Nintendo Switch 2 tech analysis, including frame rate and resolution
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