The Switch 2 is off to a speedy start for big third-party games
While today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase may have lacked the splash of anticipated third-party games like Hades 2 or FromSoftware's The Duskbloods, what was on display offered some interesting insight.
Showcases like this one offer Nintendo's second- and third-party development and publishing partners the chance to show off what they've got on the way. In the original Switch days, multiplatform games like Control would get Switch release dates months or even years after their initial launch, if they came to the Switch at all. And even then, the game might sometimes be the cloud version, requiring it to be streamed on the console, and these were generally hated for their inconsistent graphics and performance issues.
With this Direct, it seems like Nintendo is working to bring third-party games to the Switch 2 faster and, hopefully, with gameplay experiences similar to the other consoles. During this Direct, we got a look at Cronos: The New Dawn, a new game from Silent Hill 2 remake studio Bloober Team. Cronos looks like the kind of game that would have struggled on the original Switch, but it's releasing across all three consoles and PC on September 5th.
Madden NFL 2026 is also launching across the Big 3 at the same time — August 14th — a feat of note considering the last time a Madden title was on a Nintendo console was Madden NFL 13 more than a decade ago.
Star Wars Outlaws has been out since August of last year. Its arrival on the Switch 2 in September represents Ubisoft's most graphically and technically complex game on the platform since the Assassin's Creed Anniversary Edition Mega Bundle. (And the most recent game in that collection was released more than 10 years ago.) Borderlands 4, while not launching exactly day and date, will come out on the Switch 2 a mere three weeks after its PC/Xbox/PlayStation launch.
Even the third-party games that weren't shown today still represent exciting new prospects for the Switch 2. During the Switch 2 Direct in April, Elden Ring was shown as one of the games coming to the new console. With the way the original Switch struggled with more complex games, even ones designed with that console in mind, a big-ass, pretty-ass, particle-y effect-ass game like Elden Ring running on it was unthinkable. But Elden Ring Tarnished Edition, along with The Duskbloods, a totally original FromSoftware multiplayer joint, are both coming to the Switch 2. Final Fantasy VII Remake, a game with the same kind of, if not higher, technical complexity as Elden Ring, is on the way too.
Nintendo's always been the kind of company to do what it wants rather than chase market trends, and that strategy has served the company very well. The original Switch wasn't at the bleeding technical edge and, because of the high quality of its games, it didn't have to be. The Switch 2, similarly, isn't pushing the same kind of power as Xbox and PlayStation, but the console has evolved just enough that it can support some of the still-popular recent games of its competitors.
And even if not everything new will come to the Switch 2, the console still has a robust back catalog to bring forward. During today's Direct we saw that Sega's Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is bringing the Yakuza Kiwami series to the Switch 2.
We don't know how any of these games will perform when they're finally released on the Switch 2. We'll have to wait and see if the console fulfills the promise of bigger and better games running on improved hardware. We also don't know if the trend will continue beyond the initial excitement of a new console's launch window. But if the critical acclaim of the Switch 2 edition of Cyberpunk 2077 is anything to go by, the ports won't just be coming faster; they'll be good, too.
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