The Nintendo Switch 2 Is Boring, and That’s OK

The Nintendo Switch 2 is the first Nintendo console to be a direct successor to a predecessor, number and all. Sure, everyone knew what Super Nintendo" meant, but now more than ever, Nintendo is looking to competitors like Sony for cues, aiming for a simpler and more straightforward next-gen upgrade this time around. It makes sense-the Switch was its most successful home console yet, and when Nintendo tried to follow up the Wii with the more out-of-left-field Wii U, it flopped. So why mess with success?

But that strategy does leave the Switch 2 in a precarious position, especially given its hefty $450 price point (which, it turns out, might not even be final, as the company has delayed pre-orders to attempt to come up with a response to the US' recent global tariffs, which could result in an ever higher sticker price). Is there really enough new here to justify an upgrade? After going hands-on, I'd say yes (at least until we know the final, post-tariff price), but with a disappointing caveat.

The Switch 2 is a lot like the Switch 1 The Nintendo Switch 2 console and a few selected accessories. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Unlike how the Wii or Nintendo DS changed how we played games, if you already have a Nintendo Switch, then you are mostly already familiar with the core experience of using the Switch 2.

It's still, essentially, a tablet with removable controllers that can optionally hook up to your TV to display on the big screen. There are a few new bells and whistles, but Nintendo hasn't strayed far from that vision here.

It's a good vision, but sticking to it means that listing the improvements here involves relying more on specs than the new experiences I'm used to with Nintendo products, and the results don't exactly work out in Nintendo's favor.

Once again, the company is using old hardware. Nintendo hasn't been upfront about the chip the Switch 2 uses (although there are rumors that it's already five years old), but to cut it short, there's nothing here you haven't already seen in competitors like the Steam Deck or, more charitably, the Lenovo Legion Go.

Starting with the good: The screen is now 1080p instead of 720p, and a roomy 7.9-inches-an increase from both the 6.2-inches on the original model and 7-inches on the OLED model. It can also support up to 120 fps, and when plugged into a dock, is theoretically capable of playing 4K games at 60 fps or lower-resolution games at 120 fps (this will vary based on the title, which I'll get to later). There's even ray-tracing, according to a roundtable I attended with the hardware designers, although I wasn't able to confirm whether I saw it in action while I played.

The Nintendo Switch 2 boasts an improved kickstand. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

There's an extra USB-C port up top, too, which is convenient, plus a built-in microphone for the GameChat feature (which I didn't get to demo, just like the GameShare feature). The kickstand has also been redesigned to be sturdier and allow more angles, and the dock has a fan that cools your console to help keep performance stable over long sessions. (I wasn't able to hear it in person, which is good, but the event where I got to play the Switch was pretty loud.)

Perhaps the best improvements, though, are to the Joy-Cons. They now connect magnetically and feature larger thumbsticks and trigger buttons, plus more prominent SL and SR buttons, all of which makes them far more comfortable to use. I considered the original Switch Joy-Cons pretty much unusable, but with these, I actually wouldn't feel much pressure to buy a Pro controller. Plus, they have a couple of new secrets, which I'll discuss a little bit later.

The Nintendo Switch 2 has magnetic controllers. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

As for the negatives, the Switch 2 is a little bigger and a little heavier than the Switch 1, although I wouldn't have really noticed without putting the spec sheets side by side. The screen is also an LCD, which means owners of the Switch OLED might actually notice a bit of a downgrade here. It's a tradeoff for cost and the increased size and frame rate, but it's worth keeping in mind. Honestly, as much as I love OLED, I don't actually mind this too much. The screen's still plenty bright and colorful, and it's small enough that I'm willing to accept the balancing act Nintendo is playing here. The company will almost certainly release an OLED version down the line, anyway.

Really, the device itself is plenty sleek, but it definitely reads as more Switch" rather than new Switch." Just looking at the improvements on paper, I'm not sure there's much reason to upgrade just for the new tech alone, which is concerning given that it's the only real change that doesn't rely on future developer support. Even if you're a hardware nerd, the differences here aren't as stark as they were between, say, the PS4 and the PS5. Rather, they more so just bring Nintendo in line with the competition, although perhaps still remaining a few years behind.

That means that, more than ever, it's up to the games to sell the Switch 2.

But first, mouse controls! You can play the Nintendo Switch 2 while using the Joy-Con 2 like a mouse. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

But before I talk about those games, I do have to address the one big new feature here. While it's not as flashy as motion controls on the Wii or the gamepad on the Wii U, the Switch 2 does have one new standout feature that other consoles don't-mouse controls.

In theory, I love these. By simply turning a Joy-Con 2 on its side, you can suddenly slide it around and use it like a mouse. A cursor will show up in your game if it's compatible, and suddenly, it'll be like playing on a PC.

There are a few tradeoffs. The grip needed here is a bit more claw-like than I'm used to, and pressing the face buttons while the Joy-Con 2 is on its side can be pretty uncomfortable. But when I tested mouse controls in Civilization VII and, yes, Metroid Prime 4, they immediately felt like the natural way to play. I simply can't go back.

This gives the Switch 2 a lot of potential, but it's really up to developers to capitalize on it. It could become the de facto way to release shooters, RTS, or MOBA games on console going forward, which is a bit funny as those games tend to be more associated with older gamers and the Xbox. But it could also easily fall by the wayside as a tech demo, like in Drag X Drive, a game I tried that has you using both Joy-Con 2 as mice simultaneously to control a wheelchair. I'll leave it to people who actually use wheelchairs to comment on the accuracy here, but it certainly was novel-and very tiring after just about five minutes.

The potential here has me excited, perhaps more than anything about this system. Competitive shooter players could potentially play out of their living room here. Heck, you could easily use this to enable more accurate DS or Wii U backwards compatibility. But with actually implementing these being left up to individual developers, I am still a bit skeptical for now. How many games actually used Wii MotionPlus, anyway?

Metroid Prime 4 makes the case for Switch 2 Metroid Prime 4 is improved for the Nintendo Switch 2 Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Easily, the game that sold me most on the Switch 2 was Metroid Prime 4, and I'm not even much of a Metroid Prime person. (I liked the first game well enough, but generally prefer the 2D titles.)

The game, however, was gorgeous, and played like a dream. Sitting down with it was one of the few moments where I thought this wasn't possible on Switch 1." Funny, because the game is technically cross-gen.

Still, Nintendo made a point of saying that Metroid Prime 4 runs at 1080p/120 fps on the Switch 2, and while that's fairly modest compared to what I've gotten used to on the console's contemporaries, dang if it didn't feel great to see that level of technical polish and fidelity combined with Nintendo's trademark show, don't tell" design. And the fidelity actually serves a gameplay purpose here, too, as the increased frame rate makes keeping up with the action much easier.

And that's without getting to the controls, which are certainly not possible on any other console. I've played prior Metroid Prime games with just a controller, and with the motion controls in their rereleases, but mouse controls are easily the best way to move Samus in 3D. Aiming for weak points on bosses is immediate and snappy, and being able to quickly jerk your mouse to a vantage point makes taking in the scenery, whether for scanning or just eye candy, a breeze.

All this does come with a bit of a risk, as a less skilled developer could easily lean too far into these improvements, and turn Metroid into what is essentially a Halo clone. But even in the brief demo I played, I noticed the same thoughtful level and encounter design I'd come to expect from the rest of the series (not to diss Master Chief too much).

If the Switch 2 needs a lawyer, Metroid Prime 4 should be it, because it makes a convincing case for the console, even if it's still representing its older sibling too.

Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza feel like more of the same Gliding is back in Mario Kart World Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

If Metroid Prime 4 feels like a game that needs the Switch 2, then the console's other big first-party titles, or at least the ones I've played so far, land in more dangerous waters.

Put simply, Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza feel like games that could have released for the Switch 1. They're both pretty, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing so novel about the gameplay here that requires a new console to power it. They use art styles that are pleasant, but so similar to what you'd find on the Switch 1 that I'm not sure the average person could pick them out from Mario Kart 8 or Super Mario Odyssey if you put them in a lineup.

Of these two games, Mario Kart World suffers more from this. Playing it was just like playing Mario Kart 8, for better and worse. The good: Mario Kart 8 is a good game! The bad: Mario Kart 8 is a good game.

Frankly, it feels like Mario Kart World has little reason to exist, and little reason to be exclusive to the Switch 2, except to sell the console. Its few new additions, being grinding, wall jumping, and a battle royale style multiplayer mode, are all things that could have been achieved without forcing players to spend at least $500 to get them, and are pretty easy to not even notice during play. Again, it's Mario Kart 8, but more," and players would be just fine not swapping over to it.

Granted, there's one elephant in the room with all of this, in that I didn't get to try out the Forza Horizon style free roam mode much. This, I could have seen struggling on the original Switch. But I'm also skeptical how necessary it is. This could either be a full-blown map worthy of sinking hours into so you can find every detail, or a glorified lobby to drive around in while waiting for online matchmaking. But as for the core Mario Kart experience, it's still strong but not a system seller, and not an appreciable improvement over what came before beyond some only very slightly better visuals.

Is it me, or does this Donkey Kong design look more like he did in the movie? Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Donkey Kong Bananza, meanwhile, is the big 3D platformer holding up the Switch 2's launch window (it'll be available about a month after the console itself). Again, a lot of what I said about Mario Kart World holds true here. It looks good, but doesn't exactly stand out from a good looking Switch 1 game. Mechanically, it's also mostly something that doesn't require the upgrade, so it could have been a Switch 1 game if Nintendo really wanted.

That is, except for the destructible environments. Donkey Kong is recast as a bit of a miner in this game, and you can pretty much tear the whole map apart, polygon by polygon, with debris flying everywhere. I'm convinced that if you made enough compromises to the visuals, this could have worked on Switch 1, but still, it is noteworthy that Bananza is both very pretty and never chugged while I was playing.

Still, and this hurts to say as a fan of Donkey Kong, Bananza is kind of a chore to play. Maybe it'll get better further into the game, but Donkey Kong's first 3D platformer since the Nintendo 64 weirdly falls into the same trap that game did: too many collectibles.

Because you can tear the whole map apart polygon by polygon, and because almost every one of those polygons reveals a reward, it makes maintaining the same kind of flow state that Super Mario Odyssey, a game the Bananza is taking clear influence from, so heavily encouraged near impossible. Rather than focusing on fluid movement through an obstacle course, you're instead incentivized to smash and destroy nearly every part of the map, making worlds a bit of a slog to actually get through as you slowly pick them apart.

Or you could accept that you don't have to get absolutely everything, if you don't suffer from the same kind of optimization sickness I do. It is fun to simply play as Donkey Kong, but even in that case, I feel the game could be better designed to support this, since the courses here do seem to be laid out more for Mario than DK. A less linear design might support the penchant to go ape more, but to be fair, I only saw the first world.

Third party games are a mixed bag

Nintendo has a few more first party Switch 2 games announced for later on, although I didn't get to play tantalizing titles like Kirby Air Riders yet. Instead my pre-release experience with the Switch 2 was rounded out by third-party developers.

The games I tried were, sadly, the biggest reason I remain skeptical of the Switch 2. From Cyberpunk 2077 to Street Fighter 6, it was a grab bag of quality. Given how old most of these games are, and that they all run well on devices like the Steam Deck, that really shouldn't be the case.

Case in point: Cyberpunk is just flat out ugly on the Switch 2. It's pixelated, the frame rate dips constantly, and I found myself frequently disoriented in combat. It's clearly an example of the Switch 2 reaching above it means, which goes to show that while the system is prettier than its predecessor, it's not the fix for the typical Nintendo performance issues some were hoping for.

To be fair to Cyberpunk, the build I played was only seven weeks old, and I didn't seem able to swap out of quality mode and into performance mode despite trying, but it puts a pretty clear cap on this system's performance at about the PS4 level. That is impressive for a handheld, but it's also something we previously saw with the cheaper and older Steam Deck. If the Switch 2 sticks around for as long as the Switch 1 did, it could also start to feel long-in-the-tooth pretty quick, as other companies are already on the verge of leaving that era behind.

Civilization VII also chugged a little bit, although this was less of an issue given its turn-based nature.But on the plus side, Street Fighter 6 and Yakuza 0 Director's Cut ran without hiccups and at high-enough resolutions. The latter should be expected given that game's age, but as for the former, it's nice to know that Capcom knows how to work with Nintendo's hardware. Even so, Street Fighter was still noticeably pixelated at times, so it's not like the Switch 2 is the best way to play Street Fighter 6. It's just the best way to play it if you don't own any other modern gaming machines.

That's an improvement on the Switch 1, and might be enough for now. But given Cyberpunk's performance, even knowing how demanding that game famously was at launch, I do worry that it won't be long until the Switch 2 falls into the same trap as its predecessor: Third party developers will either skip the console entirely (I was hoping Monster Hunter Wilds would be here, given that series' history with Nintendo platforms, but it's MIA for now), or their games will be more and more compromised here as time moves on.

The best games on the Switch 2 are Switch 1 (and GameCube) games Breath of the Wild's Switch 2 Edition is buttery smooth Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Which brings me to maybe my saddest realization of my time with the Switch 2. The games I enjoyed playing most on Nintendo's new console are all games for the Switch 1.

Breath of the Wild. Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Metroid Prime 4. Even Mario Party Jamboree. All of these run flawlessly on the Switch 2, at high resolutions and even higher frame rates. It's really such a breath of fresh air, especially given that some of Nintendo's more ambitious Switch 1 games didn't always perform the best on that system. (I didn't get to play Tears of the Kingdom, but it is planned for a Switch 2 upgrade, and it sorely needs it.)

In a vacuum, this is eye-opening. One of Nintendo's strongest game libraries, now with no technical chains around its ankles. But it also comes with three of the Switch 2's strongest downsides.

The first, and most obvious, is that a Switch 1 game does not make for a good Switch 2 killer app. Even Metroid Prime 4, the game I praised as being the best reason to get a Switch 2, will still technically be playable on the Switch 1. And that means that thrifty gamers are plenty likely to just live with not having mouse controls, or with occasional frame drops, since they can still get the same core experience without spending hundreds of dollars for it.

The second, and most obnoxious, is that you have to pay to get these improvements. Even if you already own Kirby and the Forgotten Land for Switch, and you buy a Switch 2 for $450 (or more), you'll need to pay once again for the Nintendo Switch 2 Enhanced Edition version of the game to play it using the power the Switch 2 already has. Otherwise, you're going to get a similar experience as you would on the Switch 1, barring some potential slight improvements like marginally faster loading times. To Nintendo's credit, you can upgrade your existing Switch 1 library for a smaller fee than you'd have buying the new version outright, but it's still a hard pill to swallow. It plays your existing Switch games, but better" would have been a reason to buy here, especially if the launch lineup doesn't do anything for you, but alas.

Third, it's not guaranteed that the Switch 2 will play your existing Switch games at all. According to Nintendo's hardware developers, the new console does not contain any Switch 1 components in it, which means that it plays the non-enhanced versions of Switch 1 games using emulation. This isn't an immediate killing blow, and Microsoft is in fact fairly well respected for how it handles a similar approach on the Xbox. But it does mean that Nintendo has found issues with running over 120 games on the Switch 2, some of which have difficulty even starting up. Out the gate, the Switch 2 is going to take some time to be an appropriate Switch 1 replacement, as Nintendo goes through all 10,000+ Switch titles one by one" to ensure they work on the new console. Don't throw away your old Switch quite yet.

The GameCube controller for the Nintendo Switch 2 Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

There is one bright spot to Switch 2 emulation, though: GameCube support. Starting with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, and Soul Calibur II, Nintendo is going to start adding GameCube games to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack plan, exclusively playable on Switch 2 (and compatible with an optional GameCube style controller, sold separately exclusive to Switch Online members). Wind Waker was flawless for me in my hands-on, and suspending and resuming was instant. $50 a year is a lot to pay for such a small selection of titles, especially when there are, ahem, other ways to get them, but it is convenient. And hey, as a bonus, the Expansion Pack membership does at least include the Switch 2 Edition upgrades for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

The Switch 2 is boring, and that's OK

So where does all this leave the Switch 2? Well, truthfully, it's not as grim as I've made it sound.

At its core, the Switch 2 is a polished piece of hardware with a good deal of quality-of-life improvements and one new control gimmick (one I really like, but am unsure of whether it'll catch on). It doesn't push the hardware envelope, and like the GameCube or Wii U (eventually), it relies on its games to sell it. And before I learned that it was $450 (or, again, potentially more down the line, while still being the equivalent of $343 in Japan), this article was originally much kinder to it.

But with that price point, which will end up being at least $150 higher than the original Switch's price at launch, higher than a Steam Deck, and on par with Sony's entry-level PS5, I have no choice but to get a bit choosier. It isn't necessarily a problem, but it means I have to give this the same boring advice I would give almost any console launch, rather than the advice I would have normally given for a prior Nintendo launch.

Unless your banana hoard is overflowing, or if you absolutely need the new Mario Kart on day one, or if you can't accept any compromise when you don Samus Aran's helmet, you should wait to buy the Nintendo Switch 2. There simply aren't enough compelling reasons to upgrade right now, and given that Switch 1 support is either paid or prone to glitching, I doubt there will be for a good while.Wait for a sale (or at least until the exclusive FromSoft game comes out).

That's fine. That's what I'll probably say for the PS6, and it was probably the right move for Nintendo. The Wii U famously failed for throwing aside the strengths of its predecessor, so it makes sense for the Switch 2 to aim for Switch but more," and the only way to do that while staying anywhere in a family console's budget in the age of tariffs is to do roughly the same thing again, but with some slight improvements.

But it is still a slight disappointment. For something like the original Switch, I actually would have been fine recommending buying it at launch. It was novel and it was affordable, so you didn't lose out on much by going for it right away. Now, though, it seems even the Nintendo can't avoid the homogenization stomping all over the rest of the tech industry. Every phone is a candy bar now, and increasingly, every gaming console is just a featureless black box.

Update 04/04/2025: Addressed Nintendo's announcement that it is delaying Switch 2 pre-orders to respond to the United States' recent global tariffs, which could see the price raise.