With renewed speculation upon the Switch 2's imminent announcement, what revelations should we expect?

The Switch rehabilitated the Rabbids' reputation, redefined emergent narrative through Zelda, and ... sent Mario on one lone 3D odyssey?

In August of this year, the Company’s tenured development team, Game Freak, was embroiled within an extensive data breach, culminating in 2,600 employees’ personal information being compromised. Information cultivated from the hack, however, did now manifest itself to the public until October 12th: clandestine materials concerning the franchise began to propagate throughout social media. Curiously, despite attaining a playable build of the upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A, the hacker behind the incursion virtuously elected to not leak the title - in a paradoxical attempt to seize a minor fraction of morality. However, within their aggrandising statement, they noted their calculation was partially determined by a desire to sheath information pertaining to the “Ounce” console: the codename for the Switch 2. Humorously, the hacker did not want to make Nintendo angrier “than they probably already are.” Please, someone engrave their name on a Nobel Peace Prize already!

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is the alpha and omega of Game Freak’s crisis.

However, in a microcosmic regard, reports of Ounce’s weight in the software space have been spun from this leak. Ostensibly, the Switch 2 will use both identical tools and ROM format as its predecessor, indicating the possilbity of immediate backwards compatibility. This aligns comfortably with an officially sanctioned report of an innocuous persuasion: an announcement trailer for Yooka-Replaylee, a remaster of Banjo-Kazooie’s spiritual successor in Yooka-Laylee. Considering that the former is a current-generation exclusive, and the latter launched upon the Nintendo Switch in 2017, this revised rendition will indeed feature upon the Switch 2 - indicated both by a solitary “Nintendo” ident at the trailer’s conclusion and a direct tease from developer Playtonic. Evidently, the studio are forthrightly tired of Nintendo’s bashful belatedness, choosing to play their hand earlier than the Kyoto corporation would prefer.

Though these incidents are isolated, that the Switch 2 has received a number of third-party reports against Nintendo’s taciturn demeanour indicates a loss of narrative on their behalf. Seven years into the Switch’s lifespan, the primary question behind each new title announced for the system is its ambition against the aged hardware; will Metroid Prime 4’s concessions to function on the platform inhibit its design? Civilization VII will debut concurrently with its contemporaries; VI already sports laboured loading times. Ultimately, the resolution may lie in a common acknowledgement of the Switch 2’s cabinet of concoctions remedying its predecessors’ problems: DLSS and greater reserves of RAM are two notable improvements rumoured.

Replicating Civilisation 7’s scope on the Nintendo Switch is akin to pitting a club-bearing barbarian against a Giant Death Robot.

As Nintendo are rather coy upon the possibilities of the Switch 2, publishers have responded in kind. Though they are acquainted in an internal respect, public reports are deliberately evasive. Due to Ubisoft’s rapport with Nintendo, exemplified through their commandeering of two Mario + Rabbids pacts, one can envision Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ delay to February 2025 to have been partially influenced by a desire to launch closer to the Switch 2. Historical precedent indicates the console will release within March; five months’ worth of poor publicity for the title would sanction Shadows as dead on arrival. Furthermore, as Civilization 7 will launch in the same month as Shadows, there may be a manner of maneuvering on both of their publisher’s behalf. As both Metroid Prime 4 and Pokémon Legends: Z-A have not received release windows outside of next year, their formal unveiling is likely in conversation with the Switch 2’s marketing.

Nintendo’s upcoming slate of releases appears to be rather lean - purposefully so. Their tides are receding, portending a deluge of content. It has been precisely seven years since Mario’s last original 3D platforming odyssey - Bowser’s Fury notwithstanding. This is the longest gap in the franchise’s history, greater than the time between Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. Thus, one can imagine a spiritual successor to Odyssey will launch within a few months of the Switch 2’s launch, similarly to its predecessor. Due to Tears of the Kingdom’s echoes of wisdom still reverberating, an iteration upon its formula will not arrive for some time; a port of itself and Breath of the Wild will feature prominently as part of the Switch 2’s debut.

Super Mario Odyssey raised its sails seven years ago; it took until this year to find a worthy successor in Astro Bot.

With Sony having already iterated upon their PlayStation 5, the Switch’s perseverance is this generation’s greatest argument for prioritising canny design over technical intricacy. Sony and Microsoft have yet to produce a title within this era advancing the medium; Tears of the Kingdom raised Breath of the Wild’s formula in an elegant, yet madcap manner that felt like a leap unto itself. Perhaps perceiving parity as paramount is my personal folly; Nintendo have 143 million reasons to refute my concerns. Simply, I say, let me play Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth on-the-go.