Like many games on the Switch, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has textures that can sometimes seem blurry and muddled. There are several reasons why the graphics have that smudged look at times, and any fixes you can make depend on external hardware. Unfortunately, the Switch doesn’t have any settings to help alleviate this issue. However, there are some things you can do to make things a bit sharper.
How to fix blurry and muddled graphics in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Part of the reason Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s graphics are a bit blurry and muddled is because that’s the game’s aesthetic. It has a psuedo-cel shaded look to it and is meant to have a soft, fantastical, fairy tale appeal. So many of the effects, like fog, reflections, and lighting, all come together to give the game a hazy, dreamlike look.
However, the Switch hardware is the biggest issue with Tears of the Kingdom’s sometimes blurry graphics. This game is taking the console to its limits, and the console is doing its best to push 30fps at a decent resolution. There aren’t any performance vs. quality settings here, so if you want things sharper, you’re going to have to use some external hardware.
Without getting into the world of specialty hardware, your best bet to sharpen up Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is your TV settings. While I recommend against using any outside sharpening with any other console, it can help with Switch games with blurry textures. However, your results may vary. I’ve had good results with my LG C2 OLED, but you may find it just makes things worse on cheaper or older TVs.
Fortunately, the issue is less apparent in handheld mode. However, especially on the OLED model, everything pops, and it’s harder to spot low-res textures on a smaller screen.
