The latest Kingdom Hearts III Switch patch adds performance toggles

Square Enix trying to mitigate cloud streaming issues.
Image via Disney and Square Enix

The Kingdom Hearts III port to Nintendo Switch disappointed many fans hoping to take the long-awaited sequel on the go. Despite the franchise dipping very heavily into the handheld space, Kingdom Hearts III betrays this portability by nature of being limited to cloud streaming. While still not ideal, the newest patch promises to add consistency to the Switch presentation.

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The latest Nintendo Switch patch for Kingdom Hearts III launched today, with the most notable addition being the inclusion of performance toggles. Users are now able to select between a performance mode and a graphics mode. Exact details regarding the differences between the modes weren’t disclosed, but it’s very likely that the graphics mode targets a higher resolution with a 30 frames per second cap.

By contrast, the performance mode likely emulates the standard experience up until now, which means an inconsistent 60 frames per second target. By default, Kingdom Hearts III runs with an unlocked framerate on all platforms. Because of this, depending on the platform, the consistency of the gameplay experience could fluctuate wildly. The original PS4 and Xbox One struggled in particular.

The Nintendo Switch suffered from this same inconsistent performance, which was further hamstrung by the additional latency and variances in input response time that comes with the territory of video game streaming. The graphics mode may incur more latency due to the lower cap, but it should end up feeling better to the average user. The more stable framerate cap should do some work toward mitigating the response issues users have with the game’s general performance profile on Nintendo Switch.

While we may never see a native Kingdom Hearts III port to Nintendo’s hybrid console, there’s still hope that at least Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 Remix could get proper conversions at some point in the future. In the meantime, fans have Kingdom Hearts IV news to look forward to.


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David Restrepo
David Restrepo is a contributing writer for Gamepur. His work has been seen on TechRaptor, GameSkinny, Tom's Guide, Game Revolution, and a few others. He loves exploring the many different types of game genres, and working them into his writing. When not playing or writing about games, he watches random educational videos about science and psychology.