Hitman World of Assassination on Nintendo Switch 2 appears to have hidden “performance mode”

Following an investigation from Digital Foundry, it seems that Hitman World of Assassination has a hidden “performance mode” of sorts that many are probably unaware of.

It turns out that the game’s rendering resolution and performance changes according to how Nintendo Switch 2’s front-end menus are set. Depending on that, players could experience up to a 62.5 percent performance increase.

Hitman World of Assassination tends to run between 30 and 45 frames per second on Nintendo Switch 2. However, after changing the TV output resolution from 4K to 720p in the system settings, performance gets a big boost. The title is actually capable of running at up to 60 frames per second when Nintendo Switch 2 is set to 720p, though drops to the 40s can take place during more demanding scenes.

Digital Foundry tested a couple of GPU-intensive areas in the game. Below are those results:

Whittleton Creek

– 4K averages below 40 FPS
– 1080p rises to 40.45 FPS
– 720p rises to 59.93 FPS

Berlin

– 4K averages 34.26 FPS
– 1080p averages 36.7 FPS
– 720p averages 55.1 FPS

Things are a bit different when it comes to CPU-intensive stages. Digital Foundry looked at some of these levels, and in areas with many NPCs, “the performance differentials between the three graphics modes close up significantly.” There can still be some gaps, but in the Paris level with the fashion show, it’s 42 FPS at 720p, 39 FPS at 1080p, and 35 FPS at 4K. 

Further pointed out is that this “performance mode” may not be something that developer IO intended since you’d typically see something like this in the actual game menu. You shouldn’t need to change things in the system settings. Still, it’s possible right now to get a performance boost by tinkering around with the output resolution.

If you’re wondering what we thought of Hitman on Nintendo Switch 2, check out our review here.