Elden Ring just came back in a way almost nobody expected: a full Tarnished Edition landing on Nintendo Switch 2, bundled with new content, fresh classes, and a paid cosmetic pack that has the community arguing like it’s 2006 all over again. Yes — someone actually said the words “back to selling horse armor,” and the internet immediately lost it. And it’s not even the only giant re-release shaking up the scene this week — Petit Planet is out here gunning for Animal Crossing’s cozy crown, while The Witcher 3 Remastered is coming free in September.
FromSoftware and Bandai Namco launched Elden Ring Tarnished Edition on August 28, 2026, and it is not just a port. It’s the complete Lands Between experience repackaged for Nintendo’s new console, featuring the base game, the massive Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, and a brand-new wave of content that publisher Bandai Namco says is designed to “beckon back players to the Lands Between.”
What’s Actually in the Tarnished Edition?
For Switch 2 owners who never touched the original 2022 release, this is the definitive way in: the full game, the acclaimed Shadow of the Erdtree story expansion, and the new Tarnished Pack content all in one package. The game was confirmed as a Game-Key Card release, and early listings put the price at around $80 — a hefty tag that immediately raised eyebrows.
But the real story is the Tarnished Pack, the new add-on content that launched alongside the edition. It introduces entirely new character classes with freshly finalized stats — so fresh, in fact, that PC Gamer reported FromSoftware already handed one of them a tiny nerf before players even got their hands on them. Classic FromSoftware.
The “Horse Armor” Controversy, Explained
Here’s where it gets spicy. The Tarnished Pack also includes paid cosmetic content, and reviewers have opened the floodgates. OpenCritic’s roundup of launch-window reviews hit the edition with mixed scores, and the phrase doing the rounds compares the paid cosmetics to Bethesda’s infamous Oblivion horse armor DLC from 2006 — the original sin of paid cosmetics in gaming. Fans are split right down the middle: half are calling it harmless fun in a game that still delivers hundreds of hours of content, and half are convinced FromSoftware sold out to the very microtransaction culture it once stood against.
It’s a genuinely fascinating moment for the studio. FromSoftware, led by Hidetaka Miyazaki and famously riding the goodwill of Elden Ring’s 2022 Game of the Year sweep, has never really done paid cosmetics before. Seeing the Tarnished Pack priced and sold separately — while the game itself also received its biggest balance update in years — makes this feel less like a cash grab and more like a test balloon. Whether players accept it will shape how FromSoftware handles cosmetic monetization for years to come.
Patch 1.17 Makes It a Bigger Deal Than a Port
If you’re a returning Tarnished on PC or console, the update train is also rolling. Patch 1.17 dropped alongside the Tarnished Edition and is being described as Elden Ring’s biggest update in years: parry timing improvements, significant perfume buffs, and a wave of quality-of-life changes that players have begged for since Shadow of the Erdtree. It’s a reminder that FromSoftware is treating 2026 as a celebration year for the game — the Switch 2 launch is the headline, but the patch touches every platform. It’s the same energy Dragon Ball’s Gekishin Squadra brought to its own first-anniversary overhaul — everyone is throwing content at players right now.
How Does It Run on Switch 2?
Early impressions are surprisingly strong. TechRadar admitted it wasn’t convinced by Tarnished Edition “until I played it on Nintendo Switch 2,” while Eurogamer says the game plays much better than expected on the hardware — frame rate dips and all. For a game as dense as Elden Ring, a handheld port was always going to be an engineering gamble. The consensus so far: it’s a miracle it runs at all, and a bigger miracle that it mostly runs well.
What Do You Think?
Is the Tarnished Pack a fair deal for the definitive Elden Ring experience, or is FromSoftware officially in the horse armor business now? Would you pay $80 for Elden Ring on Switch 2, or are you sticking with your original save file? Drop your hot take in the comments — the Lands Between needs your opinion.
