Someone modded out that vaseline-blur effect in Link’s Awakening Switch

‘No DOF Blur’

Zelda: Link’s Awakening on Switch is a fantastic game marred by a few jarring performance issues.

Alongside of the framerate drops (which mostly happen in the open world, and in portable mode) there’s a blur effect on the bottom of the screen. Well, thanks to a mod from MelonSpeedruns and Rodrigo, that annoyance is no more: so long as you’re willing to dig into the wide world of Switch modding.

The mod, called “No DOF Blur,” is described as a “very simple mod” that eliminates the distant blur out of Link’s Awakening. You can find the instructions and the mod itself in the description of the below YouTube video. Some people consider this blur an artistic choice, and I respect that; but it made me uncomfortable more than a few times, especially when playing it on the go combined with the framerate issues.

This kind of stuff is incredible, and reminds me of the tireless efforts of Peter “Durante” Thoman, who fixed multiple big-budget games with mods that were painless to install. We have no idea if a real patch is in the cards for Nintendo, but it’s nice to know that it’s possible.