Elden Ring Tarnished Edition Lands on Switch 2 This Friday, With Shadow of the Erdtree Included

More than four years after it redefined the open-world action RPG, Elden Ring is about to run on a Nintendo console for the first time. Elden Ring Tarnished Edition launches on Nintendo Switch 2 this Friday, August 28, and it is the complete package: the full base game that has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, plus the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, together in one release available both physically and digitally.

Video: Bandai Namco Europe on YouTube

What the Tarnished Edition actually adds

This is not a straight port with a new label. FromSoftware built fresh content for the occasion: two brand-new starting classes, new character armor, and for the first time the ability to customize the appearance of Torrent, the spectral steed that carries you across the Lands Between. Pre-ordering adds two bonus gestures, The Ring and the Ring of Miquella, which everyone else can still earn later in the game.

The good news for players who long ago finished their journey elsewhere is that none of this stays locked to Nintendo hardware. Bandai Namco confirmed the new classes, armor and Torrent customization arrive simultaneously on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam on the same August 28 date. If you have been waiting for an excuse to start a fresh character, this is a decent one no matter where you play.

One practical note before Friday: Nintendo's product page lists the download at 41.0 GB. That is a serious chunk of a Switch 2's internal storage, so it is worth clearing space or having a microSD Express card ready before launch day.

Another heavyweight commits to Switch 2

Elden Ring arriving on a handheld hybrid felt improbable when the Switch 2 version was first announced, and it caps a summer where the console has steadily absorbed the biggest games of the past few years. We saw it with Oblivion Remastered and its full-game cartridge earlier this month, and the pattern keeps repeating: publishers now treat Switch 2 as a primary platform rather than a port begging for compromises.

Our honest expectation setter: neither Bandai Namco nor Nintendo has published detailed performance figures for the Switch 2 version, so we would wait for launch-week impressions before assuming docked and handheld play both hold up in the busiest fights. But on content, this is the definitive way to carry one of the decade's defining games in a backpack, and it lands the same week Gamescom takes over the news cycle. The Lands Between going portable might quietly be the biggest release of the week anyway.