2017 was an amazing year for Nintendo. The introduction of the Nintendo Switch was a risky move that was met with doubt and skepticism, but its release has single-handedly steered the company away from obscurity and back into the mainstream. The Nintendo Switch’s success seems like the stuff of miracles, something that seems too surprising and random for it to be anything but fate, but Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president and chief operating officer, thinks differently. In an interview with Engadget, Fils-Aime revealed that this time around Nintendo “worked with the big developers to give them technical support,” and “for the independent-developer community, we had support from Unity and Unreal. That was critical in terms of enabling them to take their content and bring it on to our system.” In 2017 this commitment from Nintendo to third-party developer support culminated in a steady stream of releases the likes of which the Wii U could barely imagine, and now in 2018, despite worries that they couldn’t maintain the momentum, Nintendo is doing just that.
In January we got Super Meat Boy, InnerSpace, Darkest Dungeon, and Celeste. In February we got SteamWorld Dig, Night in the Woods, Dragon Quest Builders, Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2, and Payday 2. In March we got Kirby Star Allies, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, Attack on Titan 2, and Fe. And this month—in April—we got Don’t Starve: Nintendo Switch Edition, and the brilliant yet unorthodox Nintendo Labo. But what’s most exciting about this year is not the fact that the list of games released so far is so dense, but that the list of games coming soon keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Sometime soon, Developer Campo Santo (who was recently acquired by Valve) will be releasing their excellent indie mystery adventure game Firewatch for the Nintendo Switch. After that, May will bring us Little Nightmares, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Version; June will bring us Mario Tennis Aces; July will bring us Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker; and that still doesn’t cover everything.
Summer will bring us Dark Souls Remastered (which was unfortunately delayed beyond its original May 21st release date), and fall will bring us the long overdue Nintendo Switch Online, along with the excellent but brutal survival game, ARK: Survival Evolved, and its voxel-based spin-off, PixARK. Beyond that, there are several games coming to the Nintendo Switch that have been officially confirmed but don’t yet have a release date; like, for instance, Super Smash Bros., Yoshi, Metroid Prime 4, Pokémon, and The World Ends With You: Final Remix. And that doesn’t even consider all of the ports and titles currently circulating in and out of the ever-speculative rumor mills.
All this is to say that despite our doubts 2018 is already a solid sophomore year for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo’s seen to it that there’s plenty to get excited about no matter how old you are, what kind of gamer you are, or what kind of genre you’re into.
There’s something for everyone on the Nintendo Switch, and the list just keeps growing and growing. It’s hard to imagine how we got here so quickly, but the fact that we have just makes us excited to see where Nintendo is going to take us next.
Joy+Sticks Gaming 