Despite an early warning that no news would be forthcoming in their June briefing, Nintendo Direct was still a satisfying summer showcase with plenty of exciting titles. We ran our own Digital Foundry Direct special looking at the announcements, with John Linneman and Oliver Mackenzie highlighting some of the most anticipated games – including new Metroid, Zelda and Lego titles.
While the video version of that Direct is available to watch below, I thought it might be interesting to talk about my personal highlight from the show, and perhaps more critically, how the announcements we’ve seen today might factor into an eventual Switch 2 launch line-up.
Starting off then, I was blown away by the Lego game: Lego Horizon Adventures. The original Horizon games – Zero Dawn and Forbidden West – have an unimpeachable setting, and it’s fascinating to see this translated into a world of coloured bricks. Most importantly, there’s been surprisingly little lost compared to the full-fat Unreal Engine 5 version of the game for PS5 and PC. High-quality Lumen RT reflections become SSR and pristine virtual shadow maps become traditional shadow maps, but the visual character of the game remains – despite the cutbacks necessary to get to even 30fps on Switch versus 60fps elsewhere.
Lego games have traditionally been some of the most faithful and fun franchise adapations, and it’s clear that this title has a ton of promise as well – especially on Switch where the visuals and gameplay are a perfect fit for handheld play. I’m looking forward to seeing how this lands later this year, and perhaps in 2025 we’ll see a visually upgraded version of the Switch’s successor.