We are officially a month past the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, the follow-up to Nintendo's most commercially successful console to date. With no advance review copies sent out to the media, fans had to go in mostly blind to this expensive piece of hardware. But is it worth the asking price of $450 USD — or $500 USD, if you want it bundled with its flagship Nintendo exclusive?
It's always a gamble when you're picking up a system at launch. You never know if the launch version will have bugs or how it'll hold up with software releases down the line. There's also the matter of the launch line-up — and whether that might make the investment worth the jump into a new generation on day one. In the case of the Nintendo Switch 2, the primary launch title is Mario Kart World, the first entirely new mainline Mario Kart in 11 years.
It's a Large Mario Kart World After All
There's no question that Mario Kart World is one hell of a game to launch a console with. Mario Kart 8 became one of the best-selling games of all time, and one of the cornerstones of the original Switch's launch-window lineup. The new Switch 2 installment, though, takes the series in a new direction. Or, should I say, several new directions: Mario Kart World is all about freedom, as racetracks share a large, cohesive world, one you can freely explore when you're not going for the gold.
In previous titles, a grand prix involved three laps of one track, then a jump to the next track for another three laps, and so on. Mario Kart World emphasizes its open-world design by having the player begin a grand prix with three laps on the starting course, then race from to the next track to complete a single lap there, then from there to another track for a single lap, and again through the fourth (and final) track of the grand prix. This means that a good chunk of your time will be racing on a relatively straight road (known colloquially as an "intermission" track) with 23 other players and hazards such as cars, classic Mario enemies, and the items thrown by players behind and ahead of you. These straight roads lack the crazy twists and turns we're used to in a Mario Kart, but that's almost made up for with the speed boosts from slightly souped-up trick-jumping and all-new rail-grinding.
Not everyone is a fan of the Mad Mario Fury Road style. Until recently, intermission routes were optional in online play; selecting a course randomly would land you a traditional three-lap track. For players who prefer this more traditional style, random selection was the only way to access them with strangers — annoying, but manageable. A recent patch removed this workaround, and the game now gives players a random intermission track ending with one standard lap of a given course. This drew ire from fans who already felt like the standard races had been ruined by these intermission tracks. Hopefully, Nintendo will listen to fans and patch the game again with an option to play Mario Kart as fans have known it for over 30 years.
There is one massive draw from the new intermission-track mechanic, though: the Knockout Tour. These incredibly long races are divided into six sections and stretch from one side of the map to the other. After each section, the bottom four racers are eliminated until there only four remain. Think of it as a Mario Kart "battle royale" mode. These races last 10 minutes — and they're the most intense fun you can have in Mario Kart World's online play.
My heart starts racing every time I get close to a checkpoint, as the screen's edges glow and begin to display the players who have raced into the next section. It's not just about winning: I have to survive each section, and most of the time make it only by the skin of my teeth. Even if I wind up in fourth place at the end of the tour, I still consider it a victory; it's that tough to make it past the final checkpoint. Sometimes it takes a leisurely kart ride around town to calm down after.
To take even better advantage of the open world game design, Mario Kart World features something we've never gotten before in a Mario Kart game: free roam. In free roam, you can drive around the world to a large catalog (around 200 songs) of remixes and covers of music from previous Mario games. But there's more to driving around than listening to tasty jams. Throughout the world are scattered hundreds of hidden items: special Peach coins throughout the open world, ?-panels on the tracks, and hundreds of blue P-switches that trigger mini-challenges. These can be as simple as racing around a recreation of a Super Mario Kart track or as complicated as performing combo of tricks and wall-riding to reach a finish line. Ultimately these challenges help you get the hang of Mario Kart World's unique mechanics.
For your hard work finding these collectibles and completing challenges, you unlock in-game stickers — unfortunately, these are only used to decorate a small section of your cart and they aren't always visible. And though there are hundreds of stickers, you can only use one at a time. So the primary reward for collecting hundreds of stickers seems to be the satisfaction of a job well done.
The future of Mario Kart World is uncertain. It's undeniably the biggest game on the Switch 2 right now, but there isn't any indication on if it will be receiving additional courses, characters, or costumes. Not long after it was originally released, Mario Kart 8 received DLC including several new characters, karts, tires, and gliders, as well as 16 tracks (4 new cups of 4 tracks each). Mario Kart World is ripe for adding additional characters — especially with some staples like Diddy Kong missing. If there's anything else to add to this game, we'll hopefully find out at the next Nintendo Direct, whenever that is.
Welcome Tour de Farce
The other Nintendo game to be released at launch is Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. This title is a virtual tour through the technical ins and outs of the Nintendo Switch 2, set in a large in-game recreation of the system. The game is structured around various stations, each of which teaches about the features of the system and how they work. Several minigames also highlight the system's various new features.
The minigames are the main reason to pick up Welcome Tour. They aren't deep, but it's fun to see what Nintendo had in mind when they were designing the system. A mouse-based game has you move a cursor to dodge spiky balls, another game that has you move the mouse to find the most intense vibration the system's rumble feature can offer, and a game of finger Twister demonstrates touch screen's support of up to 10 different points of contact at one time.
The title's biggest problem is how often you get to play these minigames and when. In order to unlock each minigames, you need medals, which you earn by doing well in the other minigames. I wouldn't see myself playing each minigame for hours on end; they're small diversions to check out once or twice. Having to replay them until I do them well enough to win two medals feels like a chore.
The spaced out minigames and largely educational tour of Nintendo's newest system raise one question: Why is this game $10? It's largely a tool to educate the consumer and show off the capabilities of a system — selling us on something we've already bought.
This price is especially damning when you compare it to 2020's Astro's Playroom, packed in with every PlayStation 5 system, which has you explore its own in-game console by taking advantage of the DualSense's unique new features. However, the amount of love poured into Astro's Playroom was well evident, and the game even received a full-priced sequel, Astrobot, that went on to win Game of the Year at the 2024 Game Awards.
Switch 1, but Better
Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour may be the only two exclusive Nintendo games on the new system, but they aren't the only things Nintendo expected their fans to play on launch. For Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers, a small catalog of GameCube games is now available. And over the next few months, the company is adding updated Switch 2 versions of Switch hits; Super Mario Party Jamboree and Kirby and the Forgotten Land are receiving patches with substantial content updates (for a $20 upgrade fee); at launch, several other titles, such as Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, received free upgrades that mostly improved performance.
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is one of the games that has been plagued with performance issues since it was released in 2022, with substandard visuals and constantly dropping frame rates. The Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game largely fixes these problems and makes the game run as it should have when it was released. But for games that already looked good on the Switch, the Switch 2 versions can be downright gorgeous.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are both beautiful games with only occasional dips in performance. For a $10 upgrade fee each (waived for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers), the Switch 2 versions of these games — two of the most critically acclaimed Zeldas — now have stunning 4K visuals and better frame rates. While I didn't restart these games, there's enough to do that I didn't get around to in my first playthroughs that could suck me in for hours at a time again. The Nintendo Online App now has "Zelda Notes" that provide in-game GPS and special spots to hear Zelda give Voice Memories that provide additional lore, so even folks who have somehow hit 100% completion in both games may have reason to fire them back up. The app also provides photo editing, play data, daily bonus items, item storage, and, for Tears of the Kingdom, the ability to share machine blueprints.
Third-Parties in Third-Place
First-party Nintendo titles, ports, upgrades, and Nintendo GameCube titles weren't the only things to release on the Nintendo Switch 2 at launch. Third-party companies such as Capcom, Konami, Sega, and Square Enix released titles on day one as well. These are largely ports of games that have been on PlayStation and Xbox systems for some time, but some of them include bonuses for essentially being full-price rereleases of old games: Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S has a special mouse mode; Civilization VII - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition allows mouse controls as well; and Street Fighter 6 physical copies come with all of the DLC characters for Year 1 and Year 2. The issue is that the physical versions of these games aren't actually physical copies at all.
Nintendo Switch 2 game cards only offer a 64 GB storage option, which is out of the price range some third-party companies are willing to pay — so most third-party games have been released on a Game-Key Card. These cards don't hold the game itself, but rather a code that activates a digital-copy download from the Nintendo eShop. But unlike a traditional digital release, you can only play the game if you have the Game-Key Card in your system. Sure, it's a cute way to have a physical copy of what is basically a digital-only release, but it's terrible from a game preservation standpoint. When the eshop closes someday in the future, new access to the game via Game-Key Card will be impossible.
The best-selling third-party title to date is one that's had a murky history with the gaming community in the past due to its unpolished state at its original release five years ago: Cyberpunk 2077 is one of Nintendo Switch 2's most popular games at launch, and it's also one of the only third-party games to actually be released in full on a game card. The glow-up of Cyberpunk 2077 has been wonderful; initially a disgraceful release from the well-regarded studio CD ProjektRed, it has become one of today's darling titles. To see it do well on the Nintendo Switch 2 feels like a perfect denouement after its victory at The Game Awards in 2023, where it won Best Ongoing Game.
Is it worth it?
Is the Nintendo Switch 2 worth the $500 (with Mario Kart World) asking price a month in? That depends on how much you like Mario Kart World and whether you already have access to the third-party games on another platform. For now, it feels like the biggest Nintendo fans will be happy with the Switch 2, but the system still has a long road ahead of it before it feels worth it for everyone.
The rest of the year has a few exciting releases that should make the price tag seem a little sweeter. Later this month, we'll see an update to Super Mario Party Jamboree that includes use of a USB camera and use of mouse controls. We also have the release of the first 3D Donkey Kong game in over 25 years with Donkey Kong Bananza. Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World will be released in August.
It may not seem like much is planned for the Nintendo Switch 2 for the rest of the year, but Nintendo rarely reveals their plans for the holidays early. We do know that Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond are coming to both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 later this year, and Kirby Air Riders, an exclusive title we know almost nothing about, is also expected to be released in 2025. We're due any day now for a Nintendo Direct to reveal what else is coming for the rest of the year and beyond.
If you're on the line about picking up a Nintendo Switch 2, it may be worth it to wait a few months. Restocks are happening frequently, and they're not as difficult to get ahold of as the original Nintendo Switch was at launch. However, if you want to get lost in a colorful world with some of the coolest courses the Mario Kart series has ever offered, I highly recommend giving Mario Kart World a shot.
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