Julius

Well, folks, dawn is still a few hours away, but I can't sleep, so I'm going to post this now. 2½ months have somehow already passed since it was announced; we can finally say that today is the day of the Switch 2 Direct! To kick our days off right, let's talk dreams: What's your one - singular - dream game announcement for today's Switch 2 Direct?

Just finished rewatching this..and man, what an oddly paced presentation this was. The opening was pretty much perfect: recap of what we'd seen up to this point, accessories, confirmation of region locking going away, launch date and prices (only JP and US, Europe got the "check with your local retailer" treatment ), talk about the hardware and the trial period for NSO. Seamless transition from hardware talk into 1-2 Switch, the first proper game trailer of the show. Takes about 15 minutes to get these essential details out of the way. It's then a constant back and forth between first-party trailers and the stage – totally forgot Fire Emblem Warriors was a thing, and wow, what a totally nothing trailer that got! If I'm remembering right we got that Fire Emblem Direct end of Jan/start of Feb? – before third-party is handled so weirdly, from Koizumi verbally confirming Dragon Quest X, XI, and Heroes I & II as coming to Switch on behalf of S-E, before back-to-back trailers for SMTV and Project Octopath Traveller. For my count, this was only the second time in the entire show that one trailer rolled directly into another, the other time being from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 into that naff Fire Emblem Warriors trailer. Then there's Nagoshi, Todd Howard, Suda51 and Patrick Söderlund turning up one after another, either on-stage or via a pre-recorded video, to endorse the Switch – such a strange and varied bunch to have present in some way as the big third-party representatives, and it's then onto a montage which announces/reveals 20+ games, more than doubling what had already been confirmed/shown up to this point in the show (40+ games shown all told, they confirm 80+ titles in the works for the platform at the time of the show). By far my biggest gripe with this showcase, watching it back now, is how these games are trickled out. The show becomes so stop-start, and the montage not naming the games being shown is such an odd choice; even now looking up a full list of games shown at the event, comparing to my gaps in knowledge when trying to list the games shown, I struggled to identify a couple of them! I hope if there's a montage in the Direct tomorrow that they have the decency to flash titles up throughout, so that you can pause and know what exactly it is that you're looking at. Reggie in a pre-recorded video talking about the "atmosphere crackling with posts and messages all about Nintendo Switch" was a hilarious level of hubris Nintendo really had no right to back in January 2017, and yeah, that send-back to Kimishima where they're asking when the release for Breath of the Wild is for Kimishima to just put it off a little longer is so awkward, especially when we didn't know at this point that it would be a launch game! But, the show wrapped up on that Breath of the Wild trailer, which to this day I rewatch every now and then, and remains one of my favourite trailers of all-time. I wasn't even a Zelda fan when I tuned in for this back in January 2017 and yet I remember I was feeling emotional and overwhelmed by how epic it all was, not to mention it being like 90% gameplay and 10% cutscenes, 100% in-engine, and just having that sound design add some punch to the moments the music is building up or choosing to take a quick break. By far my favourite part of the trailer still to this day is when we go from the floor of Zelda's emotional breakdown and quickly and expertly build back up to the highest of heights through the epic music climbing, shot of Link on horseback in Hyrule field, the charged ice arrow let loose into the head of the Stalmoblin piercing the orchestra with the sting of the ice arrow head making contact, and Daruk's "here it comes!" Perfection. Honestly, think my biggest...not concern, or even worry, but point I've just had to accept going into the Direct tomorrow personally is that we probably don't get a trailer that hits as hard as that one. It's not a fair pressure to put on Nintendo - even trailers for Tears of the Kingdom didn't stack up; this BotW trailer was a generational one, by far my favourite for any game on the Switch - but otherwise? This rewatch emphasised to me just how smart a move it is for them to go with the Direct format for this. Even though it was still well-paced, that's with the asterisk that it was well-paced *for a live event. Think they could easily fit in hardware talk and any online/NSO updates in 10-15 minutes (depending on if they feel the need to recap what will be similar coming from the Switch) considering they covered it all in 15 minutes back in January 2017, of course then leaving a full, meaty Direct-length amount of time to focus on games. Assuming there's a montage here, I think it's a pretty safe bet there'll be 50+ shown tomorrow. Alright, time to rewatch their E3 2017 showing

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm guessing they've updated it somewhere in the background with the price ahead of tomorrow (placeholder or not), which is only showing in a Google search, and that installments plan has just been automatically generated off the back of that same figure. Nice find either way! I'm honestly more surprised we didn't get slammed with April Fool's versions of this cropping up all day

The Google search result also states it a bit more plainly: Huh. Like you say, could be a placeholder, but I don't think it was picked up that they'd put the price up any earlier – so unless it has been missed completely by everyone up to this point, it would seem that it's been updated? £500 always seemed within the realm of possibility, but certainly on the higher end of what was possible. It also wouldn't shock me too much if Nintendo might've had to shift things price-wise due to what's going on over the pond right now. Not long until we find out!

A new class, Ironeye, has been revealed:

Think I'm going to make a point to rewatch this and their E3 2017 Spotlight tonight, as I'm expecting this event to fall somewhere in the middle. Might even take some notes while doing so. One thing I distinctly remember about this event was having some third-party studio heads up on stage or on-screen to endorse the Switch at different points, which is something we don't really see all that much in Directs. The other thing was how awkwardly Kimishima dragged out the transition to the Breath of the Wild trailer to close things out after Reggie, Aonuma and Miyamoto pestered him about the release date for the game before throwing it back to Tokyo from NYC My question to everyone is: do you think we see some third-party studio heads in tomorrow's Direct? If so, who do you think we get? My pick would be Phil Spencer. It feels like a lot is lining up here for Xbox to have a few games to contribute on Switch 2, and to this Direct specifically, and with him now being the head of the biggest (?) gaming publisher in the world after Xbox's acquisitions over the last few years, I feel like it would only be right for him to show up if they are having "guests" appear. Would be nice to see him with a better script and in a Direct-style setting rather than what they do over at Xbox, too

C Button getting one final tease in the Nintendo Today! app ahead of tomorrow's Direct... At this point I'm not sure if I'm not curious about Mouse-Cons or the C Button

Trailer for Karate Kid: Legends Hype

Super weird thought, but I was trying to think of some big surprises which don't feel outside the realm of possibility – I'm never going to try to accurately predict Nintendo (because that would make me the April Fool)... We got the Portal Companion Collection on Switch. How about a Half-Life Collection (1+2) with updated graphics? Switch 2 console exclusive and also then made available on Steam, obviously. I feel like that would get a decent amount of attention (also because it'd be somewhat Half-Life 3 adjacent). Actually, on the topic of Half-Life, now that I think about it...it's stuck in VR for now, but Alyx using dual Mouse-Cons could be super interesting. It'd take a lot of time and effort for something which would probably be Switch 2 exclusive (maybe they just announce a standard PC port for the game at that point too, separately, idk?) and I'm not saying I'd expect it, but talking of supposed GOTY-calibre ports from the last decade...this would be the only one I think which wouldn't really work on other consoles but could be engineered to work on Switch 2? Wonder if there are any other VR games which could make good use of the dual Mouse-Cons? Could be an interesting USP for some of the inevitable Switch 2 versions of the modern Resident Evil games. I'd be shocked if Tomodachi Life or Rhythm Paradise showed up in the Treehouse purely because they're 2026 titles and also probably won't really be seen as having any major benefit on Switch 2 vs the OG Switch? Legends Z-A would be interesting but I don't trust Game Freak to put in the work for a Switch 2 SKU/enhanced edition, so if anything I think it'd be a forced boost via backwards compatibility and maybe just be an FPS boost with additional sharpness at best I also don't know about showing Xenoblade Chronicles X either, if anything I think 3 could be a better shout purely because X would be viewed as a Wii U game (no idea if it's in the code the same way it is for X and others but it could be patched/a Switch 2 edition/what have you?). The main reason I don't think we see it here, though, at least in any major way other than in a potential montage or something for Switch 2 boosted patches/editions/whatever is because I think we could see Monolith Soft's next game here? In lieu of a new Zelda that would seem the obvious choice to me for a game which is really going to impress on Switch 2. Selfishly I'd want a new IP rather than another Xenoblade from them, though

Yeah, I think some party game or a pack-in could easily be shown off there. Wind Waker/Twilight Princess/Fire Emblem/Kirby are back on the table boys! (please no, I think if anything we're probably talking something like Prime 4 with this, right?)

There it is! Third parties and a blowout are 1000% on the cards, 60 minutes is what I wanted on the top-end in an optimistic case. I'm super happy and my hype is through the roof Can't believe we didn't really discuss the potential of a Treehouse at any point, but this makes so much sense, especially with how limited the spots were for the hands-on events! I'll need to race back from the office those days to tune in – which I'll 100% be making sure to do Hoping for similar vibes to the Treehouses for E3 2016 and E3 2017, my favourites wonder if there might be one or two smaller titles there that don't necessarily get lip service during the Direct proper, like Samus Returns for 3DS in 2017 or Snipperclips earlier that year? THE HYPE IS REAL, 23 HOURS 15 MINUTES REMAIN

Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse releases June 4th 2027, first look shown at Cinema Con: FINALLY!

The next Spider-Man film starring Tom Holland has been announced: A Brand New Day, releasing 31st July 2026: Finally!

1 day remains.

Some interesting stuff going around today about dev kits – remember that rumour last week from Insider Gaming about third-party devs not getting the dev kit until June? We've got some people talking about the dev kits today. Per John Linneman of Digital Foundry game (timestamped): Imran Khan has echoed this sentiment in reaction to this over on ResetEra, referring to a big third-party dev Nintendo has apparently deemed "too chaotic". And lastly, Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson has suggested that these dev kits - or some of them - don't have 4K output: Interesting stuff. Really curious to see who has and hasn't been left out on the third-party side of things when it comes to dev kits, imagine it'll make Nintendo's job of curating things a lot easier. Anyways, here's another look at the console per tomorrow's Nintendo Today! countdown to the Switch 2 Direct (because timezones), including a tabletop + Mouse-Con configuration on the right: Lookin' good