RE Engine surpasses limits: Resident Evil Requiem runs on the Switch 2

The new graphic and performance features for the PC version of Resident Evil Requiem have been confirmed by Capcom, including support for NVIDIA's DLSS 4, multi-frame generation, and path tracing. Although these premium features confirm the technical capabilities of the RE Engine, the true surprise of the Tokyo Game Show 2025 was the demonstration of the same title running flawlessly on the Switch 2—a console that is notoriously "not synonymous with raw power."

Capcom made it clear that the PC version of Resident Evil Requiem will be the technical reference, boasting cutting-edge features such as NVIDIA's DLSS 4 and notably, the inclusion of path tracing for advanced lighting. These additions, which maximize performance and visual fidelity, underline the technical gap that modern triple-A software needs to overcome to reach more modest systems like the Switch 2. Optimization success is measured against the excellence demonstrated on the PC.

The live demonstration of Resident Evil Requiem on the Switch 2 at the Tokyo Game Show 2025 shocked the industry. The game's performance, running flawlessly and "without any errors," contradicted the initial skepticism of the development team itself. The audience at the fair had the opportunity to test the game on both the new Nintendo console and laptops, allowing for a direct comparison that validated Capcom's optimization for Nintendo's hardware.

The secret behind the feat, according to director Koshi Nakanishi, lies in the foundation of the company's proprietary graphics engine.

Koshi Nakanishi said that "the secret lies in the RE Engine, the graphics engine that Capcom has been using for years. The RE Engine was built to adapt to both more powerful machines and more modest systems. It is this flexibility that allowed the game to run so well on the Switch 2."

The adaptability of the RE Engine allowed for highly scalable development, a crucial factor for success on platforms with hardware restrictions such as the Switch 2.

Producer Masato Kumazawa and the technical team confirmed that this optimization was a design strategy from the beginning.

For starters, this game was created to be quite scalable. We developed it by adjusting various options so that it would be compatible with a wide range of specifications, from the highest to the relatively low, so that the Switch 2 could be optimized to fit the specifications quite easily. We didn't try to impose something made for high performance to run slower, but we preemptively assumed a variety of specification conditions. Even we were surprised when we first saw how well it ran. I think it was thanks to the hard work of the engineering team that it ran so well.

This approach, which avoided trying to impose high-performance assets on weaker hardware, resulted in a performance that exceeded Capcom's internal expectations.

The success of optimizing Resident Evil Requiem on the Switch 2 is significant news for the industry as a whole. The demonstration at the Tokyo Game Show 2025 sets a valuable precedent: if a game with the visual and technical complexity of a Resident Evil can run smoothly on the new Nintendo console, there is a strong possibility that other major games based on similar graphics engines could arrive on the platform without the quality loss often associated with ports to more limited hardware.

Capcom and the RE Engine achieved a technical milestone at the Tokyo Game Show 2025 by running Resident Evil Requiem flawlessly on the Switch 2, validating the engine's scalable design. The feat, which even surprised the developers themselves, suggests a promising future for the Switch 2 library, despite the contrast of cutting-edge features such as NVIDIA's DLSS 4 and path tracing being limited to the PC version.