Arms: how Nintendo is reinventing the motion game for the Switch age

Games such as Wii Sports Boxing made players feel like they were in a drunken pub fight, but Nintendo wants to revive the format's fortunes

Motion controls. Punching. Nintendo. For many, these four words will summon the spectre of Wii Sports Boxing with its wildly flailing limbs and drunken pub fight responsiveness. When the company's new fighting game for the Nintendo Switch, Arms, was announced back in January, there were concerns we'd be subjected to more of the aimless waggling that Boxing - and many other Wii games - fell victim to. After a few hours with a preview version however, this is less of a concern - although Arms remains a difficult game to grasp.

The design theory seems to be to do to fighting games what Splatoon did to shooters - ie take a popular genre, strip it down to the basics and build it back up in an idiosyncratic style, making it accessible to newcomers while also promising enough depth to keep a lively online scene thriving. It is a fighting game with party game elements - it's Super Smash Brothers v Punch Out v Powerstone. And that's a really intriguing if complicated package.