Seven things from last week's Nintendo Direct actually worth your time
Nintendo crammed two Directs and something like 40 announcements into one week. Here's what actually earned a place on my calendar.
Image: The Game Bakers
Nintendo held two Directs in as many days last week: a 40th-anniversary one built around Zelda on the 8th, and a general one on the 9th that ran through somewhere north of 40 different games and updates. That's far too much for anyone with a life outside Nintendo's release calendar to sit through, so here's the shortlist instead: seven things that actually made me stop scrolling.
Cairn
The Game Bakers, the studio behind Furi and Haven, are bringing their mountain-climbing game to Switch 2 in early 2027. You play a professional climber called Aava attempting to conquer a fictional peak named Mount Kami, and the whole hook is that climbing is the game, not a traversal mechanic bolted onto something else: managing stamina, planning routes up the rock face, deciding where it's actually safe to rest. A free demo is already up on the eShop if you want to find out whether that's your kind of tension before committing to anything.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered
CD Projekt Red's native Switch 2 remaster lands 29 September. We've already covered it properly here, so this is just the reminder that it's genuinely close now.
Mario Kart World's free update
Version 1.8.0 launched the same day as the Direct, and it's a real nostalgia hit rather than a token gesture: ten circuits from the original 1992 Super Mario Kart, playable as standalone races, question-mark item panels and all. Two new Knockout Tour routes and a spectator mode for watching friends play came along with it. No purchase required, it just showed up.
Metroid Ravenous
A new 2D Metroid, picking up after Metroid Dread, out 28 January 2027. Samus gets a new ability to drain energy straight out of enemies, Dread's parry mechanic is back, and there's a dash that lets her warp through walls. The trailer ends on her facing down five cloaked, faceless figures on an alien moon, which is exactly the kind of hook a Metroid reveal should be setting up.
Final Fantasy VII Revelation
The third and final chapter of the Remake trilogy, following Remake and Rebirth, arrives 8 April 2027 on Switch 2 alongside PS5 and Xbox. After more than five years split across two games, this is actually the end of it.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Royal Edition
Warhorse's first-person medieval RPG comes to Switch 2 in 2027 as the Royal Edition: the base game plus all three story expansions, cosmetic gear and a bonus questline in one package. It'll support Joy-Con 2's mouse mode too, which is one of the first genuinely convincing uses I've seen suggested for it outside an RTS.
Persona 6
The confirmation itself was almost nothing: Atlus's cryptic logo held up on a Switch 2 screen for a few seconds, no gameplay, no release date. But it's real, and it's coming to Switch 2 alongside PC, PS5 and Xbox, which settles it if you'd quietly assumed Atlus might leave Nintendo out of this one.
Forty announcements in one week is not a reading list, it's a filter problem. This is the filtered version.
Everything else
The Resident Evil 2/3/4 remasters, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Pikmin 4's Switch 2 editions, an actual new StarCraft, Fire Emblem, Tomb Raider, all of it happened too, and any of it might be exactly what you're after if that franchise is your thing. We just didn't have room for all forty. That's rather the point of this page existing.