The crowd roars as Mario drifts around the final bend. The finish line is in sight. Then, out of nowhere, a red turtle shell speeds towards him and overturns his kart, allowing Yoshi to slip past and snatch the crown. This isn’t just Mario Kart, it’s the new Knockout Tour mode in the forthcoming Mario Kart World. In this thrilling new version of the game, 24 competitors start the race, but four racers are eliminated at regular checkpoints, ratcheting up the tension to painful heights. My Princess Peach, riding a chic pink motorbike, bowed out gracefully in 12th place.
Prying myself away from the controller, I take in the scene: clusters of excited Nintendo fans, including one dressed as Mario, another as Donkey Kong, crowd the hands-on event to test the Switch 2 console which will be released on June 5 (though not in China). Though the staff are relentlessly upbeat and there is scarlet Nintendo branding everywhere, no amount of forced cheer could bring warmth to the harsh lights and grey surrounds of the ExCel London conference centre. Still, nobody’s thinking about the ambience — they have a new console to ogle.
With the Switch 2, Nintendo has done something uncharacteristic: played it safe. This is a company that has built a reputation for championing joy and invention — its consoles may not have the raw processing power of competitors, but it always devises surprising new ways to play. The first Switch, released in 2017, was a milestone in gaming, with its innovative hybrid format allowing it to be played either handheld or docked to a television. It sold 150mn units, and is the third bestselling console of all time.
Yet alongside its history of innovation, Nintendo also has an unfortunate tendency to follow runaway successes with misfires — the Wii U failed to capitalise on the success of the Wii, while the 3DS sold poorly compared to the DS. With the Switch 2, which also carries the previous console’s branding, form and game library, Nintendo is clearly taking pains to avoid perpetuating this pattern of sophomore slumps.
Holding the Switch 2, it’s clear what Nintendo is aiming for: a Switch, but bigger and better. The console looks very similar to its predecessor, but is noticeably sleeker, with rounded edges, a more mature dark grey colour palette and subtle accents under the joysticks. It feels less like a toy than the first Switch. The screen is wider and the console is larger, but it feels sturdy rather than bulky, and not noticeably heavier. There have also been improvements to some cheap-feeling aspects of the original: the Joy-Con controls now attach with satisfying magnets rather than fiddly sliders, and the screen has a higher resolution and a crisp, bright display. There is also a new button to enable the new video chat feature, which was not demonstrated at the event.
While it won’t match the current generation of PlayStation and Xbox consoles in terms of hardware power, the new Switch is significantly more powerful than its predecessor, which is sorely needed considering that the original Switch has been struggling to run recent games. When docked to the TV, it can output games at 4K resolution and up to 120 frames per second — numbers that are enormously meaningful to a great swath of the gaming community, but rather obscure to everyone else.
Mario Kart World will sell millions of consoles by itself — and will therefore be bundled together with the Switch 2 on release. The series is an unstoppable multiplayer favourite — its previous instalment is the fifth bestselling game of all time. While not a series known for radical reinvention, the latest edition marks a significant departure, liberating racers from the track and allowing them to traverse an open world in the style of the Forza Horizon series, which cycles between day and night as well as different weather patterns. There are new racers and outfits for existing characters, such as a mariachi costume for Waluigi and a traditional Japanese yukata for Peach.
Usually we would expect a new 3D Mario platform game with a Nintendo console launch, but with nothing announced so far, the role has been filled by Donkey Kong Bananza, in which the muscular ape goes on a quest for crystal bananas. The hook here is that the game is set on large floating islands made of rock that you can deform with your fists, punching holes into almost any wall or floor, reshaping the environment and creating your own tunnels to find hidden treasure. It’s a creative and delightful feature, with impressive environmental graphics that show off the power of the new console. Kong himself has also been given a redesign worthy of a leading man (or ape), his perma-frown replaced with a friendly, expressive countenance.
The other new first-party release, due later this year, is Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the much-delayed sequel to Nintendo’s classic 3D space shooter. The game looks stylish and plays much like previous Metroid games, as you blast aliens and roll around the environment in your morph-ball form. It is a chance to show off one of the Switch 2’s more unusual hardware innovations: that either controller can be used on its side as a computer-style mouse. This should be perfect for increasing accuracy in shooters such as Metroid, but in practice I found the mouse orientation uncomfortable to hold for a long time, and soon switched back to the familiar controller.
Switch games will be playable on the Switch 2, and some of the most popular titles have been given a refresh for the new console. I tried new versions of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, both of which looked sumptuous — the gleaming water and swaying grass as I galloped past on my horse suggested a good excuse to revisit these two open-world masterpieces. Fans have also been pleased to see Nintendo bring classic GameCube games to its virtual store, with Soulcalibur II, F-Zero GX and Zelda: The Wind Waker already confirmed with enhanced graphical resolutions.
Other Switch 2 games that have been announced include The Duskbloods, a new multiplayer game from the creators of Elden Ring; Drag x Drive, a wheelchair basketball game designed around the new mouse controls; and new versions of games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Civilisation VII, Split Fiction, Hogwarts Legacy and Hades II.
If there has been a sour note surrounding the Switch 2 so far, it’s the price. Nobody expected the console to be as expensive as £395.99 (or £429.99 with the Mario Kart bundle). This is just one reason for sticker shock; others include the higher price of games and the mysterious decision to charge for the Switch 2 Welcome Tour, an interactive online preview. Nintendo can no longer be considered a cheap alternative to PlayStation and Xbox.
The maker of Mario occupies a special place in the gaming firmament. It symbolises the joy and purity of play, and inspires a particularly childlike love from fans. Nothing about the Switch 2 will disturb that reputation, but it won’t do much to elevate it either. In this age of instability — where Trump’s tariffs caused US pre-orders of the console to be delayed by a week — playing it safe might be a wise move. But it doesn’t seem like a Nintendo thing to do.
