SG Choice: The Games We’d Like to See at the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct

After years of leaks, after eight years since Nintendo Switch launched and upended the games industry, we finally got our first look at Nintendo Switch 2. In mid-January, Nintendo released a teaser trailer with some tantalizing details and music that could’ve been on the Big Heavy Horn Riffs 2 album. The size is a bit larger, there’s a better kickstand, the JoyCons have what looks for all the world to be a magnetic snapping feature, and we’ve got a hint or several that they can also act like computer mice. Overall, what we’ve got is a console that seems to have a few nifty changes around that lovely core Switch goodness.

But the operative word here is “seems.” This was still a super-light trailer, far more so than the iconic reveal of the original Switch. That one very nicely communicated the core theme of the console being a portable and home device. This one is very much selling us an upgrade, one whose most interesting facets are under the hood. Details on long-leaked features like high level AI upscaling, greater power, which few games won’t be backwards-compatible, and a confirmation on that mouse feature aren’t here, only planned for a presentation on April 2. Most notably, no games were shown at all save the tiniest hint of the next Mario Kart. It looks pretty! And apparently, it allows 24-player races? Games are what make a console and the ones in the Switch’s first year cemented its rise to glory, so we’re still in that antsy position of finally seeing but also waiting.

So we (and by “we” I mean Phantom, who came up with this prompt) have decided to right this… well, I don’t feel comfortable calling it a “wrong,” but c’mon. We’re all excited about the games that’ll be on here. It’d be nice to see more of what this puppy can do, especially if even some of the rumored third party games—a list of possibles that stretches from Tekken 8 to Final Fantasy VII Remake to even the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta—are along for the ride. We’ve got a show in three months: what would we like to see there?

Wolfman Jew: It’s been eight years since Super Mario Odyssey. Bowser’s Fury may have been a diversion or a soupçon or a vision of what is to come, but dagnabbit, I want the next 3D Super Mario. There’s always been a long wait between entries, and they’re probably gonna be longer for the foreseeable future as Nintendo begins to enjoy the longer development cycles of modern games. But after Odyssey rocked the world with its jaw-dropping design, the wait has been agonizing. More than any other game they could have on the docket, this one I’m anticipating the most.

The first Switch trailer had about five or six games to give you a perfect idea of what to expect from the console. It was a good statement of intent, and I softly assumed that the trailer for Switch 2 would do the same thing. The newest entry in an annual EA sports franchise of negligible interest to anyone who’s a regular reader here. A new Mario Kart (that one we did get). That aforementioned 3D Mario I desperately want in the vein of those first few shots of Mario Odyssey. And the equivalent of Skyrim showing us the appeal of taking a full fat modern game on the go. There have been a lot of rumored third party ports that would fit the bill for the last one, and we’ll be seeing some of them in this article, but for my mind nothing would’ve been as cool as Elden Ring, perhaps in the form of a “complete” edition. It’s not just that it’s an open world action RPG set in a vaguely Western fantasy world, or that it’s a technical show pony, or that it has DLC that could potentially be bundled in to tempt people like me into double dipping. It’s just a symbol of incredible Triple-A design and something that’d be fun on a TV or on the go. Add it in, and then we at Source Gaming can spend hours arguing about whether Ranni the Witch should be in the next Super Smash Bros.

Speaking of games that have had their names bandied about in the rumor mill, the aforementioned Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth. I mean, it’s a great idea. Square desperately needs the revenue from putting them on more platforms (and hey, Rebirth just got on PC!), Nintendo and Final Fantasy go together wonderfully, and… is there a third thing? Well, anyway, as someone without a PS5 I’d certainly like to finally play Rebirth, and as someone with concerns about Square Enix’s health I’d like them to be less volatile. I have to imagine seeing Avalanche—perhaps even as a launch title?—fighting the good fight on Switch 2 would help.

During its life cycle, the Switch became a great home of PS3-era classics from the late 2000s and 2010s. Nintendo pushed Skyrim the hardest, but there’s also been the Portal games, BioShock, Red Dead Redemption, and plenty others. I suspect we may see the Switch 2 giving a lot of PS4-era classics a second wind, and one I’d deeply, deeply love to get is Her Story, Sam Barlow’s critically acclaimed 2015 police interview mystery that helped kick off a new wave of FMV games. Its follow up Telling Lies is on Switch, and Immortality on PS4, but the most important and influential of this collection has never come to console. I’d really love to see that rectified, not because a game about watching grainy testimony clips would necessarily get anything extra out of the Switch 2’s power boost but because it’d allow people to access an important piece of modern gaming history.

But speaking of PS3-era games, there’s one Seventh Gen standout that I’d just love to see, and that’s the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. This sumptuous remaster of the Mass Effect Trilogy from a few years ago sounds absolutely incredible, and I’d love to have it on a Nintendo console. There’s plenty of reasons for it, from giving me ample room to suggest another Smash newcomer in Commander Shepard to giving BioWare hopefully one more avenue of revenue after a cruel last few months, but perhaps the strangest reason is that it could act as a sort of redemption. See, the first and last time the franchise was on Nintendo was in Mass Effect 3… for Wii U. Sent out to die, and without any of the save data transfer goodness that’s part and parcel of the series. I even have a distinct memory of EA, bless their hearts, explaining that this was a good thing because now you had to make tougher choices without all the memories and advantages you could import. That’s the most EA bit of marketing imaginable, right?

We will, in all likelihood, see a lot of Microsoft stuff on Switch 2. As the company keeps gobbling up (and destroying) more and more studios, it’s also transitioning into a multiplatform institution. This has somewhat upended prevailing wisdom about how the “console wars” work. It’s also symbolic of how chaotic and volatile things are in this industry. For us on this Nintendo-focused blog, what matters is that the company is going to be bullish on porting to Nintendo. DOOM: The Dark Ages is almost a lock, for instance, and there have been rumors of everything from The Master Chief Collection to Diablo 4, but my assumption going forward is that everything they can port to Switch 2, they will port. So consider this my space for all the Microsoft games I want to see. Prey! Psychonauts 2! Dishonored! Indiana Jones! The Age of Empires remasters, which could potentially even use the mouse feature!! And nice improvements for the Microsoft games we already have on Switch, like Pentiment. Honestly, that last one alone is all the Microsoft support that matters. God, Pentiment rules. Why aren’t you people buying that one in droves?

I’ve hit the third parties pretty hard. Mostly that’s because, well, I’m pretty confident in whatever Nintendo’s studios have been cooking. The Switch has been a cornucopia of excellent first party games, the best I’ve enjoyed in my life as a Nintendo fan. Like, the next Zelda’s gonna rule; Nintendo EPD 3 just needs more time before showing it. I’m confident Next Level Games has something fun like Luigi’s Mansion 4, but I’m cool to just wait. Fire Emblem and Metroid 6 and Animal Crossing are assuredly all in some stage of development. And there’s Masahiro Sakurai’s new project, which is probably just Smash and will be fun. But… actually, no, I do really wanna see Luigi’s Mansion 4. After a house, some unrelated houses, and a hotel, I’m excited to see where Next Level could take the series. My idea is a sandbox-y neighborhood (“Luigi’s McMansion”), but I’m sure it will be good.

And finally—and this is the most mercurial of these ideas—I want reveals for an all-new Nintendo IP and a previously unrevealed third party game. New franchises from Nintendo always come with new hardware, but it’s still important for me. We got ARMS and Ring Fit Adventure from this era of the company, and also 1, 2 Switch. I want to see new series and new worlds added to the company canon. As for something new by other publishers, it would be nice to distinguish the Switch 2 as fully new and fully distinct. So much of the Switch 2 discourse, including this very list, has focused on the console getting older games from other, more powerful platforms. This is entirely fair. There are a lot of games that would be fun to see on the console. But it’s good to have new things, too, and the history with the Switch has shown that this is rather likely. Shin Megami Tensei V was announced at the original Switch presentation, and plenty of indies, smaller games, and even a few really big deals debuted at Nintendo Directs. Perhaps this is the blank space in a Bingo card and isn’t that dramatic of a guess, but these are worthwhile things. So I’ll be looking forward to ‘em.

PhantomZ2: There are quite a few titles that have been on people’s radar that you think would have a stated release console by now, but simply don’t. Two of these titles that I think we could see in the Nintendo Switch 2 focused Nintendo Direct are DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION & Hollow Knight Silksong.

To start off with Silksong first, despite the Nintendo Switch 2 open to playing a large library of Nintendo Switch games when it launches, I think one of the best opportunities for Team Cherry would be being one of the first Nintendo Switch 2 titles to release. As people begin to purchase the console, aiming to play new games on it as well, an opportunity where a physical copy of Silksong in a Switch 2 case would make it pop out alongside any other launch titles for the platform. While this isn’t needed for Team Cherry to do, I do see it as an opportunity where many fans will be able to enjoy the highly anticipated title alongside the highly anticipated successor. Of course, I don’t think Switch 1 owners should be left out, so the digital version that would be put out on the eshop would be marked as a “Switch 1” game while ultimately being the same version.

As for one of my most anticipated titles, DAEMON X MACHINA TITANIC SCION by First Studio & MARVELOUS was announced in 2023, but the announcement of a sequel in the works was in 2021 for the original title’s 1st Anniversary. Within that time, we’ve seen two CG trailers, both lacking gameplay and a stated platform. My hope for these decisions is due to the original title releasing as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. While it seems as if MARVELOUS may be publishing the title themselves, as it was already announced by them, I’m hopeful that Nintendo would still assist in promoting the title akin to when the first title was on its way to release by featuring it in Directs and communicating feedback and development updates to the potential player base.

Hamada: As someone who’d rather just play multiplatform games on PlayStation, there aren’t many third parties I’m desperate to see on Switch 2. However, there’s one game I recently got into that could suit the console perfectly: Marvel Rivals. It’s a shooter, but I suck at aiming. Although I’m probably coping when I blame the controller, I really wanna make like the PC players around me and try a mouse. If the new Joy-Cons’ rumored feature actually allows for that, I’d be very happy! It’d be so great, I’d even forgive Nintendo for how brittle the original Joy-Cons were. While we’re at it, let’s get some Nintendo-exclusive skins in there. Imagine Iron Man in the Varia Suit or Captain America with the Hylian Shield! Those are never gonna happen, but they’d be a cool callback to that time Marvel Ultimate Alliance supposedly missed out on cameos from Samus and Link.

Another game I think could do a good job showing off the mouse is Kid Icarus: Uprising. Despite being one of the all-time best Nintendo games, much of the talk surrounding it focuses on its admittedly shoddy control scheme. I’d take any sort of port or remaster, but if an X factor was what we needed to get it off the ground, then the Switch 2 might finally have the answer. Sakurai had this to say in one of his YouTube videos: “It sure would be nice to play Kid Icarus: Uprising on a home console. I wonder if someone out there will ever port it?” A tease that explicit is rare for Nintendo games, but hopefully it’s exactly as it sounds. That being said, I’d be interested in anything Sakurai’s working on, so we’ll just have to wait and see which project his closing video alluded to.

To wrap up, let’s finally pitch a wholly new game for the Switch 2. Thanks to surprise masterpiece Astro Bot, 3D platformers have seen a recent uptick in prestige. It was such a great game, it might’ve even dethroned my beloved Galaxy! The next 3D Mario has a lot to live up to, but that pick was rightfully brought up earlier on, so I’ll request another sequel I’m anticipating: the next 3D Kirby. Forgotten Land was a fantastic evolution of the pink puff’s side-scrolling roots, so just imagining HAL building on that foundation gets me excited! Aside from a playable Meta Knight and maybe a Magolor appearance, I’m not hoping for anything specific. No matter the direction it takes, it’s sure to be a fun time and a fantastic opening act for the console.

Oh, and while this bonus entry isn’t a game, I think it’s worth mentioning that I really hope Nintendo aren’t done making amiibo. Lately, we’ve seen less and less new ones joining the lineup, which is a shame since they usually make for some of the most accessible merch you could find for a series. The Xenoblade packs were especially cool because of that, so hopefully we’ll see some new games revisiting the figures in the coming Direct. Otherwise, it’s do-or-die when the next Smash rolls around…

Cart Boy: In what will not be a shocking revelation, the game I’m most hoping to see is the next Donkey Kong. After all, the last mainline entry, the stellar Tropical Freeze, hit eleven years ago. Even if Donkey Kong skips the next Direct or two, though, I’m confident something’s coming. We’ve been hearing rumors about a new game for years, and I suspect there’s truth to them. But I should also stress that the series is absolutely thriving as-is. Today, Donkey Kong has a theme park, a big role in a hit film, a healthy amount of merchandise (which, may I add, is mostly being released under the Donkey Kong banner, not Mario’s), its own IP management team, and still has a prominent presence on the Switch. Nintendo is so invested in the star that they even gave him a modest redesign! These things wouldn’t happen if Nintendo had no plans to continue Donkey Kong. Oh, and I have no strong preference regarding whether the next game should be 2D or 3D. I think the latter would make a bigger splash, but I generally prefer 2D platformers. Hopefully one day Donkey Kong can alternate between them like Super Mario does.

…Well, okay, there is one game I’d love to see even more than Donkey Kong: an adventure starring ex-detective Kyle Hyde! Whether it’s remakes of his older games or a sequel, I will scream if the Hotel Dusk: Room 215 / Last Window: The Secret of Cape West hero and his quirky cohorts return. Considering its sister series, Another Code, returned through a remake of the older games (which even gives Kyle a cameo!), it stands to reason these Nintendo DS classics would receive a similar treatment first. And, who knows, maybe we’ll even score a third game down the road! Will Kyle finally meet Another Code leading lady Ashley? Perhaps there’s some conspiracy concerning the death of his college sweetheart, Christine, we’ve yet to uncover. Hey, I have big dreams…

Naturally, I’d be thrilled to see another surprising franchise revival. I already mentioned Another Code: Recollection, but the Switch years also ushered in resurrections of Famicom Detective Club and Endless Ocean. Nintendo has no shortage of properties that could use some love. Collections of their older, now inaccessible series—Pushmo or Art Style, for instance—would also be swell.

And, finally, I’m obligated to give my boy Pac-Man a shoutout. The middle-aged mascot’s anniversary is coming up, and as it stands the main attraction celebrating forty-five years of ghost-munching is… Shadow Labyrinth, a wild reinterpretation of the character. I believe it’d behoove Bandai Namco to release it alongside a more traditional, digestible Pac-Man title. Maybe it can channel Pac-Man’s roots, like the Championship Editions or Arrangements or 256. Or they could follow up on Pac-Man World Re-Pac and remake Pac-Man World 2; the original World 2 was pretty solid, and it’d be nice to get a version of it on modern platforms.

And that’s our ideas! Of course, these are just games, though I’m sure we’d all like a revamp of the Switch’s atrocious online storefront design. How about you? What games would you like to see in the Switch 2 show?