Which is the best version of Village in the Shade? PS5, Switch 2, Switch

by Mikhail Madnani on 23 October, 2026

NIS America's Village in the Shade finally launches worldwide next week following its Japanese release earlier in the year. Ahead of its launch, I've had a chance to play Village in the Shade across all platforms to see how it scales, the state of the Switch 1 version, handheld boost mode testing on Switch 2, load times, and more. James will be doing our full review of the game so stay tuned for that.

Advertisement. Keep scrolling for more

Village in the Shade visuals and performance across PS5, Switch 2, Switch, and PC

Village in the Shade's visuals are very similar across all platforms since it handles its art in a similar way to say Hades where it samples the source art based on output resolution but appears to cap out at 1080p across the board. With this, it essentially looks very close on PS5, Switch 2, and PC, but I was curious to see how the Switch 1 version compared with them. When playing docked, they are all about the same. I noticed no differences in my 4K capture across PS5, PS5 on PS5 Pro, Switch 1, and Switch 2. Performance is a bit different though.

When playing Village in the Shade's Switch 1 version on Switch 1, I noticed some minor hitching in the opening sections. It still targets 60fps like the PS5 and Switch 2 versions, but those hitches didn't occur when playing the Switch 1 version on Switch 2 or the native Switch 2 version. The PS5 version also runs perfectly. In fact, I'm a bit surprised to see the developers not target 120fps on Switch 2 and PS5. The other performance-related concern, while not major, is that bringing up the map and some menus has a delay on Switch 1, but not on Switch 2 or the Switch 1 version played on Switch 2.

The PC version supports uncapped frame rates and can even run well above 60fps on PC handhelds as I'll cover below. 

Village in the Shade handheld visuals and performance across Switch 2, Switch 1, Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Intel handhelds

Advertisement. Keep scrolling for more

When it comes to portable play, the area Village in the Shade really shines as far as I'm concerned, it basically delivers on every device we tested on with the Switch 1 version being a bit worse off thanks to some hitching. Visually, Village in the Shade looks great on all portables. I was unable to test on AYN Thor because the game wasn't installing for me with GameNative. I might revisit this in the future once the public build is live on Steam. That aside, Village in the Shade is capped at 60fps on consoles even in handheld mode. The PC version can deliver higher frame rates with the Steam Deck being above 85fps at all times. It doesn't deliver a locked 90fps though. 

On my ROG Ally Z1 Extreme (tested at 15W and 25W Turbo mode), I wasn't able to get a locked 120fps and playing at 60fps (display set to 120hz) had some hitching. The VRR screen sorts out some of the drops, but there are frame time issues when playing with a 120fps target. I recommend playing with 60fps at 60hz by capping your screen.

Village in the Shade's performance didn't differ much between my MSI Claw 7 AI+ and my OneXPlayer 3; both can provide a high refresh rate experience, targetting 120 or 144 FPS, at a low wattage - or 60 FPS at extremely low watts. I settled on playing the game at 15 watts on my OneXPlayer 3, which was good for 144 FPS without nasty frametime spikes; setting the wattage lower than this would sometimes cause these spikes on the OneXPlayer 3, which I chalk down to a quirk of the chip (The G3 Extreme chip inside will disable the Intel P-cores when the TDP is set below 15 watts).

10 watts on the MSI Claw was good for 90~120 FPS, and didn't have the same frametime spikes as the OneXPlayer 3, while 15 watts left the game more or less locked at 120 FPS, leaving a very marginal difference between the two. In the case of both handhelds, setting the wattage to 7 watts - the minimum supported for the Claw - was good for 60 FPS. Considering how easy it is to hit a smooth high refresh rate with just a little more power, I would stick to targeting 120+ FPS; battery life is going to be over 3 hours at 10 watts, even on an MSI Claw 7 AI+ with its smaller battery.-James

While not related to the visuals or performance, I want to note that the console versions have very good rumble including HD rumble and haptics. Given the visuals being very close across all devices, the rumble made me focus on Switch 2 as my main version given the hybrid nature of the device and the rumble which is lacking on ROG Ally and Steam Deck.

Village in the Shade Switch 1 vs Switch 2 and handheld boost mode

Just like with Final Fantasy Resonance, I've had some folks ask me to test Switch 1 on Switch 2 since Village in the Shade has a proper physical release on Switch 1, but a Game-Key Card on Switch 2. Having now tested it, aside from minor increases to load times, you are not missing out buying the Switch 1 version to play on Switch 2. There is no advantage that I've seen in-game to playing Switch 2 over Switch 1 via boost mode handheld either.

Advertisement. Keep scrolling for more

Village in the Shade load times across PS5, Switch 2, Switch 1, Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Intel handhelds

To test load times, I installed Village in the Shade on the internal storage on Switch 2 (both S1 and S2 versions), the Switch 1 version on Switch OLED SD Card, the PS5 version on internal storage (PS5 and PS5 Pro), the PC version on the internal storage on ROG Ally and Steam Deck. James helped out with Intel handheld testing here. We measured the time taken to load the title screen from the dashboard and the time taken to load a save file. 

← Scroll table for more → Platform Dashboard to title Loading a save Switch 1 10 5 Switch 1 on S2 4-5 2-3 Switch 2 4-5 2 PS5 on PS5 Pro 2 <1 PS5 3 <1 Steam Deck 10 <1 ROG Ally 3 1 OneXPlayer3 5 <1

All versions are very fast barring the Switch 1 version on Switch 1. I want to note that the Switch 1 version on Switch 1 also takes a bit of time to load the map when it is instant on other devices. In James' testing, the MSI Claw 7 AI+ was a bit longer than the OneXPlayer 3 in the initial load.

Which is the best version of Village in the Shade?

Given the small differences across platforms compared to other games, there isn't much you are missing if you play Village in the Shade on whatever your platform of choice is. Even the Switch 1 version on Switch 1 isn't bad, it just has a few issues holding it back. The best version taking into account the visuals and load times is the Switch 1 on Switch 2 or Switch 2 version played on Switch since you get a solid portable option as well. If you don't care about portable play, the PS5 version is the best console version with the fastest load times and trophy support. Overall, the PC version is the best though since it supports uncapped frame rates and more input options. I'm a bit surprised to see no added input options on Switch 1 or Switch 2 in Village in the Shade. I also expected the PS5 and Switch 2 versions to target 120fps given the performance on Switch 1 and general scalability. 

Which version of Village in the Shade should you buy?

• Village in the Shade for Switch 1: Village in the Shade for Switch 1 has a physical release and it is held back by longer load times and some performance issues on Switch 1, but these are more or less sorted on Switch 2 via backward compatibility.
• Village in the Shade for Switch 2: There is no real advantage to buying the Switch 2 version over the Switch 1 version right now since the latter also has a physical release and you get the same experience with boost mode aside from slightly longer load times. Village in the Shade for Switch 2 is a Game-Key Card physical release. If you are digital-only, get the Switch 2 version to play on Switch 2.
• Village in the Shade for PS5: If you want to play on your TV, care about trophy support, and don't care about portable play (unless you stream to a PlayStation Portal or phone), this is the version to get. It is also the fastest version when it comes to load times. Village in the Shade for PS5 is available physically.
• Village in the Shade for Steam: If you play on Steam Deck or PC in general, this is the only version you should consider. It plays fantastic on Steam Deck out of the box and is a very good PC release scaling above the console versions when it comes to performance and input options.

Advertisement. Keep scrolling for more

Hopefully this helped you decide where you should get Village in the Shade, one of NIS America's best games in years. I'm looking forward to playing more of it through the coming weeks on Switch 2.

Village in the Shade, currently available in Japan on console and worldwide on Steam (without English support, coming next week), will be launching on October 27 for PS5, Switch 2, Switch, and PC (Steam).