Nintendo held its first major Direct of the Switch 2 era yesterday, and after sitting with it for a day, I’ve landed on a score: 6 out of 10. That’s not a bad score. But for a show that was nine months in the making, it should have been so much more.

There was a lot here. Over 40 games shown. Plenty of announcements. And one moment — right at the end — that genuinely took my breath away. But the shape of the show, the weight of it, the sense that Nintendo was truly delivering on the promise of this new hardware? That wasn’t quite there. Let’s break it down.

What Nintendo Got Right

Let’s start with the wins, because there were real ones.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time closed the show, and that decision alone tells you Nintendo knew what they had. After a tapestry-style opening narration, the Great Deku Tree, Kokiri Forest, and a boy without a fairy — Link appeared on screen. The graphics look good. The remake is real. And for anyone who grew up with that game, it landed exactly as hard as it was supposed to.

The problem? That’s all we got. A teaser. No release date, no gameplay, no details. For the show’s closing announcement, after nine months of waiting, Nintendo gave us forty seconds and a “please look forward to it.” That’s going to frustrate people, and rightfully so. I’ll come back to this, because it’s worth sitting with.

Final Fantasy Resonance was the other genuine highlight for me. This is an HD-2D Final Fantasy — the same visual style that made Octopath Traveller and Triangle Strategy feel so distinct — built around the crystal mythology that defined the franchise’s classic era. The summon system pulls in iconic Final Fantasy heroes from across the series, essentially making it a love letter to 30 years of Final Fantasy history. That’s a seriously exciting concept. If Square Enix executes on it, this could be special. October 22nd.

Jujutsu Kaisen Rumble Survivaton came out of nowhere. From the makers of Vampire Survivors, eight players, a survivors-royale format where you build your run before a head-to-head finale against the last player standing. It looks chaotic, it looks fun, and it has the most absurd name in the show. This is exactly the kind of surprise a Direct should produce — something you weren’t expecting that immediately jumps onto your wishlist.

Orbitals — two-player co-op space adventure, September 3rd, Switch 2 exclusive — looks genuinely lovely. Bright, inventive, the kind of game that makes the most of the Game Share feature. If you have someone to play with, put this on your radar now. It was already announced before this Direct, but seeing more of it only made me more interested.

Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave had a strong showing. Four playable protagonists, each with their own story running through the same tournament-for-the-throne structure. The tactical combat looks polished, there’s a special Dagdom Collection edition launching alongside it, and September 17th is a real date you can put in your calendar. I’ll be honest — I’m not great at tile-based strategy games. But I was genuinely engaged by what I saw here, and Fire Emblem fans will be very happy.

Xenoblade had a big showing. All three Chronicles games are getting Switch 2 editions with 4K resolution in TV mode, 60fps throughout, enhanced cutscene quality, and new features for each title. The first game’s upgrade is available today. That’s a serious amount of content for returning players and a fantastic entry point if you’ve never played the series. And then, almost as a footnote, they teased Xenoblade Genesis — a brand new entry. That was unexpected. It won’t be out until 2027, but it’s exactly the kind of long-term signal that matters when you’re assessing a platform’s future.

Splatoon Raiders is shaping up well. The PVE treasure-hunting loop is genuinely interesting — you’re raiding islands with a member of Deep Cut piloting an exploration bot alongside you, fighting off Salmonids, levelling up, and collecting loot. It has the feel of a proper single-player Splatoon game, which the series has never really had before. There’s a dedicated Splatoon Raiders Direct coming on June 30th for more details. My excitement is measured, but it’s real.

Kingdom Hearts 4 — I know, the transcript flags it as unclear from the sizzle reel, but it was there. Kingdom Hearts fans are going to go absolutely nuts. This franchise has been dormant for a long time, and a Switch 2 announcement is a genuine moment.

Deltarune Chapter 5, likewise, for Undertale and Deltarune fans, this is huge. These are games that inspire the kind of devotion you rarely see, and a new chapter is always a significant event in that community.

Duskbloods had a closed network test announced for Summer 2026. Not a lot of new information, but the game is still very much alive and progressing. Good to see.

What Didn’t Land

Here’s where I have to be honest about the shape of the show.

It was heavy on third-party ports. Dragon’s Dogma 2 Dark Arisen, Devil May Cry 5, Lies of P Complete Edition, Lords of the Fallen 2, Kingdom Hearts Collections 1 through 3, Metaphor: Refantazio, Stellar Blade. These are all, to varying degrees, good games. But most of them have been available on other platforms for a year or more. Bringing them to Switch 2 is commercially sensible — it fills the library, it serves players who only game on Nintendo hardware, but it does not make for an exciting Direct. Watching a port of a game you already played on PlayStation isn’t the same feeling as seeing something new.

Lies of P is worth a specific mention. It’s a genuinely great Soulslike, the Complete Edition bundles in the Overture prequel expansion, and if you haven’t played it, August 6th is a fine reason to start. But it was already announced at Summer Game Fest. Which brings me to the next point.

Several games had already been shown before this Direct. Rayman Legends Retold was at Summer Game Fest. Star Fox was at Summer Game Fest. Orbitals were known. When a significant portion of your show is re-presenting things people saw two weeks ago, you’re burning runtime without generating new excitement. It also creates a slightly deflating feeling mid-show — the sense that you’re watching a recap as much as a reveal.

We waited nine months for this. The Switch 2 launched in March. This was the first substantial Direct since then. The reasonable expectation — and I think it was reasonable — was that Nintendo would use this moment to draw a clear line from here to the end of the year and into 2027. Here’s everything coming. Here’s why this platform has legs. Here’s your roadmap. What we got instead was a show that leaned on third-party content to do a lot of the heavy lifting, with first-party highlights that were either short-term known quantities like Splatoon Raiders or long-term teases without dates.

Rhythm Heaven Groove opened the show on Nintendo Switch — not even Switch 2 — and while it’s clearly a well-made game that Rhythm Heaven fans will enjoy, it was a curious choice for the curtain raiser of the biggest Direct in years. It set a tone that undersold what was coming. If you’re going to open big, you open big.

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort looks fun, and the motion controls on Joy-Con 2 seem like a natural fit. But there’s an exciting version of this announcement and a version that feels like Nintendo recycling a format they’ve already used twice. Twelve sports, October 22nd. It’ll be a great party game. It’s not a statement of intent for the platform.

The Zelda 40th anniversary got nothing. 2026 is a Zelda anniversary year. We got a tease of an Ocarina of Time remake, which is Zelda-adjacent, but there was no broader celebration, no retrospective content, no indication that Nintendo is doing anything to mark four decades of the franchise. Given how much goodwill that kind of gesture generates, its absence was noticeable.

Ocarina of Time: The Moment That Deserved More

I want to spend a bit more time on the closing announcement, because it deserves it — and because the way Nintendo handled it tells you something interesting.

The build-up was perfect. The narration about Hyrule, the Kokiri Forest, the boy without a fairy — if you know that game, your heart started beating faster the moment it started. When Link appeared on screen, that was a genuinely special moment. The visuals look like a serious reimagining, not just an upscale.

But then it ended. More details will be announced in the future. Please look forward to them.

That’s fine as a tease for a game that’s still a long way out. But as the closing announcement of a show that people had been waiting nine months for, it felt like a tease when it should have been a reveal. The difference matters. A tease leaves you wanting. A reveal delivers something. Nintendo gave us a tease, placed it where a reveal should have been, and then ended the show.

The question now is: when do we get the reveal? If Ocarina of Time is a 2026 release — and the framing of “please wait a little longer” alongside the Switch 2 launch game language suggests it might be — then a proper Direct for it later this year would make sense. That game, properly shown, is going to be one of the biggest Nintendo moments in years.

What It Tells Us About Switch 2’s Library Strategy

There’s a pattern emerging across the Switch 2’s first few months, and this Direct clarified it.

Nintendo’s first-party slate is thinner than expected at this stage. Mario Kart World launched with the hardware. Donkey Kong Bonanza is out and performing well. After that, the confirmed first-party pipeline consists mostly of Splatoon Raiders in July, and then a series of future promises — Zelda OoT with no date, Xenoblade Genesis in 2027, and the new Metroid Prime presumably somewhere in between.

So Nintendo is filling the gap with third-party content. That’s not a criticism — it’s a strategy, and it has historical precedent. The original Switch had a similar first-year shape, with third-party support bridging the gap between first-party releases. The difference is that the original Switch had Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, and Splatoon 2 all in its first year. Switch 2 launched with Mario Kart, and everything else is coming.

The third-party content is genuinely good. Ports of strong games, new exclusives like Orbitals and Star Fox, and the promise of games like Final Fantasy Resonance later in the year. The library on paper looks healthy. But the emotional narrative of a platform — the sense that this is the place where great new things happen — that still needs first-party Nintendo to drive it.

Ocarina of Time, whenever it arrives, changes that conversation. A full remake of what many people consider the greatest game ever made is exactly the kind of landmark moment a platform needs. The question is just when.

The Score

A 6 out of 10 Direct. Solid. Occasionally great. A closing moment that reminded you exactly why Nintendo, when they’re firing, are unlike anyone else in this industry.

But too many ports. Too much repetition from Summer Game Fest. A first-party pipeline that still feels like it’s building toward something rather than delivering it. And an Ocarina of Time reveal that should have been the beginning of a conversation, not a forty-second tease followed by silence.

The show Nintendo fans actually needed would have given us more of Ocarina of Time. A release date, or at least a window. Something on Metroid Prime 4. A clearer picture of 2027. A sense that the next two years of Switch 2 are already full.

This wasn’t that show. But it contained the seeds of it. And if Nintendo follows through on what they teased here — if Ocarina of Time is everything it could be, if Xenoblade Genesis lands well, if Splatoon Raiders turns out to be the best thing the franchise has produced — then we’ll look back at this Direct as the moment the Switch 2 era properly began.

We’re just not there yet.