Last Wednesday, Nintendo streamed a direct where several new and returning games were announced for the Nintendo Switch, many of which are old Wii/NES games. Several long-awaited sequels and DLCs were announced as well. The community could not be more excited for some of these classics to be reimagined on the Switch and for the new games that were announced as well.

Nintendo has recently been re-releasing older games/ remastering them for the Switch so many fans are not surprised by the recent announcement. A few games that they have released include Super Mario Galaxy and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Super Mario Galaxy was originally released for the Wii, and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were originally released for the DS. The Pokémon games were remastered as “Brilliant Diamond” and “Shining Pearl” for their Switch release.

One of the bigger releases from the direct was for “Nintendo Switch Sports” an homage to the extremely popular “Wii Sports”, and “Wii Sports Resort”. The game contains a few of the sports from both games and will add two more with a DLC that will be available a little bit after the game’s release.

Another game that people are very excited for is Kirby and The Forgotten Land. Tue trailer was released not too long ago and features Kirby becoming a car. Fans are especially excited about it since the last Kirby installment, Kirby Star Allies, did not meet up to the expectations people had for it. Most complaints were about how the story mode was too easy and underwhelming and that the mini-games were not fun. Though the backlash that was received was not taken too seriously since the target audience for that game seemed to be younger children. Either way, fans are still happy to be getting more Kirby Switch content, and Kirby and The Forgotten Land will be available to play on March 25^th of this year.

There are several sequels and DLCs that will be available for download on the Switch this year as well. Nintendo’s extremely popular franchise Splatoon is getting a third installment this year. There has been no official release date announced yet, but one should be out sometime during the summer months. There will be a Kingdom Hearts DLC and collections available to play on the Switch as well as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and access to the first two will also be coming to the switch in September of this year. An announcement was made for a reimagined version of Earthbound, a very popular NES game, to be released for the Switch along with a prequel game. The iconic puzzle game franchise Portal will also be coming to the Switch. A date has not been announced for Portal: Companion Collection yet but will be coming this year.

There are so many amazing games coming to the Switch this year and it is going to be very interesting to see how some of these games are going to look and function on this new console, and if these games will meet fans’ expectations.

Article by Sophia Meek