The first thing that was immediately noticeable the first time I held the Nintendo Switch 2 was simply how solid the Joy-Cons 2 felt. My biggest gripe with the current Nintendo Switch is that the rail connection between the Joy-Cons and the system never feels fully solid. There is some give there, especially when playing in handheld mode, that always makes me worried that at any moment they are going to snap off.
Yet every time I picked up the Nintendo Switch 2 console during a hands-on preview event yesterday in New York City, those thoughts were never at the forefront of my mind. Instead it was simply how comfortable the system overall felt.
While the Nintendo Switch 2 is around the same thickness as the standard Nintendo Switch models, it is noticeably wider and longer. This is due to the larger screen, with the Nintendo Switch 2 boasting a larger 7.9” LCD display.
This extra real estate was nice when playing games The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Switch 2 version. Seeing Hyrule come to life on the larger screen at a much higher framerate than its Switch 1 version could ever hope to dream of achieving was something magical.
In fact, in my nearly five hours of game time on the Nintendo Switch 2, there were a ton of moments that made me feel transported back to my childhood and teenage years. While we’ll have separate articles talking about specific games throughout today and tomorrow, here some some of my major takeaways from my time hands-on with Nintendo’s upcoming console.
The Joy-Con 2 magnetic snap is extremely satisfying
So, this is not necessarily gameplay related, but it was one of the first things that made me smile with just giddy glee when I experienced it in person.
The Snap.
I adore the sound that the Joy-Cons currently make when they snap into place on the existing Nintendo Switch. While I don’t necessarily love how sturdy that connection feels, the snap is satisfying, even almost a decade later.
I’m absolutely thrilled that the Nintendo Switch 2 is abandoning its rails system for the magnetic connection. What I was afraid of was we’d lose that iconic snap sound that has become almost a mascot of the Switch on its own.
I am so happy I was wrong.
Connecting the Joy-Cons 2 to the hardware is literally a snap, and as the color-coded sections meet we’re met with such a satisfying sound that I found myself taking the Joy-Cons 2 off and on again just to relive it.
One thing you will notice once you’ve got one in your hands is that it’s not just the magnet holding it place, but a small piece of plastic protruding from the Joy-Con 2 and slotting into a connection point on the device itself. During a Q&A with the hardware design team yesterday, this was brought up by a journalist who was worried (as was I) about how sturdy that connection would be, as it could easily be a point of fatigue on the Joy-Con 2.
However, the dev team assured us that this was tested quite thoroughly and much of the connection is made via the force of the magnetic snap, with that portion of the connection only triggering when the magnetic connection was made. While the team stopped short of saying it would never fatigue, they did assure us in the room that it’s as sturdy as the team could make it.
Either way, that Joy-Con 2 snap won’t ever get old, I don’t think. It has nothing to do with how the system functions - but it was such a nice harkening back to the original Switch in more than just the form factor, but rather an audible part of the experience that is carrying over in a meaningful way, as a point of connection to the system’s past.
And I’m here for it.
The Joy-Con 2 feels so much more comfortable - when not in mouse mode
The current Switch’s Joy-Cons always felt too cramped when playing with them detached from the system. Even when connected to the Joy-Con Grip, the pair would simply feel small and fragile in my hands.
Not so with the Joy-Con 2. These are heavier and much more substantial feeling than their predecessors, equipped with better rumble, larger L+R, ZL and ZR buttons, and the rounded corners really allow them to comfortably sit in the wells of my palms.
I also really appreciated how fluid the new joysticks felt on the new Joy-Con 2 controllers, though I am still worried about eventual stick drift, as the first Switch suffered in droves. Hopefully the advancements the Nintendo hardware team has made since the 2017 launch of the Nintendo Switch mean that consumers won’t be plagued with this issue on the more substantial Joy-Con 2s.
One area where things didn’t feel as comfortable was in mouse mode. Look, there is a reason why modern gaming mice all follow a similar pattern: a smooth, rounded top that takes up the full width of your palm, spreading the load across the whole of your hand.
By contrast, the Switch 2 Joy-Con 2 is much thinner, giving a nice, thin rounded point sticking into your palm at all times of using the device. It’s intuitive, don’t get me wrong. The L/R button is the left click, while the ZL/ZR can be used as the right click. The Joy-Con 2’s analog stick makes for a handy mouse wheel.
Games like Sid Meier’s Civilization VII felt so much better overall in mouse mode than gamepad mode. It felt, in many ways, like I was playing on my PC. At first, I thought navigating the map through the left Joy-Con 2 analog stick would feel weird, especially when paired with the mouse Joy-Con 2 in my right hand, but I got used to it rather quickly.
The same was true in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Controlling what is essentially the WASD movement with an analog stick while controlling camera movement with a mouse in my other hand was something I had to get used to early, but it was a rather quick transition.
However, after just a few minutes in either game, fatigue would set in. It’s just not that comfortable, having that rounded edge constantly dig into my palm. It might just take some getting used to - admittedly, I didn’t have a ton of time in either game - but it was likely the weakest part of the experience.
And it’s a shame, because the Joy-Con 2 mouse feature unlocks some really cool game experiences.
Quirky Nintendo Feature Is Quirky
One of those experiences, Drag x Drive, uses the new mouse functionality to its fullest, putting players in the wheels of an epic wheelchair basketball player. The Joy-Con 2 mouse functionality is used to simulate what it’s like to roll around in a wheelchair. Dragging the Joy-Con 2s forward propels the character forward, while holding the brake on one side and using the other side can pull off hairpin turns to quickly change direction.
It’s a workout as well, as each 3v3 game I played had me furiously trying to track down the ball carrier, eager to steal and shoot a basket for my own team with a simple flick of the wrist.
However, turns out I suck at wheelchair basketball (I cannot wait to get my nephew into this game - he plays this in real life and I wonder how well he’ll do), but it was incredibly fun to try to play this console in a novel new way. It reminds me of when I tried ARMS for the first time on the original Switch - this was the new, novel way of playing Nintendo that I’m happy existed - even if it’s not something I’ll always use myself.
Another great example of mouse controls were some of the new mini-games in Super Mario Party Jamboree. The games were intuitive, from using the Joy-Con 2 to spray paint Bomb-ombs, picking the controller up to shake the can when I ran low on ink, to simple air hockey. It was here that I think the new functionality shone the most. These were simply experiences that were effectively pick-up-and-play. Pretty much everyone has played air hockey before. Using the Joy-Con 2 to move the paddle and protect my goal made me feel like I was back at Game Nest with my daughter back home. If I'm honest, I will lose so many hours playing these mini games.
I really wish the screen was OLED
It’s really hard to go back after having experienced an OLED display. And that’s effectively what Nintendo is asking us to do on the Nintendo Switch 2.
While the new display is capable of 1080p, HDR10 and 120fps, it’s still simply an LCD. It does support variable refresh rate, which can help to smooth out those framerates when games buckle under pressure, which is a nice feature, but I can’t help but feel that, overall, the screen is a downgrade.
And I’m not sure that’s a fair assessment on my part.
OLED is fantastic for color accuracy, deep and inky blacks, and contrast - colors just pop on an OLED display. Sure, the Nintendo Switch OLED isn’t HDR, but I never really thought about that in gameplay because it just looked so good in motion.
HDR does a lot of heavy lifting here on the new 7.9” LCD screen, and I’ll admit that things look much better on the screen than I thought they might when we learned during the Direct it was simply an LCD. And sure, LCD technology has come a long way since the Switch’s release in 2017.
I’ll also note that the event space wasn’t your typical environment to play games - it was dark, lit mostly by a few lights here and there, but mostly by the ambient glow of game stations begging to be played, so it’s hard to fully gauge just how good this screen truly is without having it in my own environment, so I’ll reserve final judgment till then. But I will admit: even in the dim lighting, I’m pleasantly surprised by the screen and hope to have that re-confirmed to me come review season.
GameCube Online FTW
In my predictions article, I mentioned that I wanted GameCube to join the online offerings from Nintendo. And I’m happy to say it was one of the only things I predicted accurately. I’m so happy that we’re getting this feature. The GameCube has long been my favorite Nintendo console, and it’s the one when browsing used game stores I gravitate towards, biding my time till I buy my childhood again.
Thankfully, Nintendo just made that day farther into the future, especially since two of the games I’d be most interested in, Soul Calibur II and The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker are coming to the online platform on launch day.
The new wireless GameCube controller also feels incredible. There is just something about that form factor that is just…perfect. Picking up the purple GameCube controller at the demo station, I felt like I was back in high school as I booted up SC2. A few rounds as Mitsurugi and Raphael later, and I was dominating CPUs like I used to dominate classmates nearly 20 years ago.
The GameCube app also allows for games to be displayed in either 4:3 or 16:9, depending on whether the original game supported the aspect ratio. This means that while Soul Calibur II did, Windwaker did not.
Windwaker is an odd one as well. It truly felt like it was a blast from the past since it was still locked at 30fps like both the original and the Wii U HD remake were. However, because it’s the GameCube version, it lacks many of the features and improvements made when the RPG w as ported to the Wii U years later.
It took some getting used to, but not using the C-Stick to navigate the camera was a major transition. No dedicated jump button was also an adjustment. But I’m glad that the company decided to bring the Windwaker version from the original console to this emulated version - though it does make me want to start asking when we’ll see a Wii U Switch Online app…
All your Nintendo Switch accessories will work just fine
$450 is a lot of money for a console, especially when you normally need to invest in new controllers and accessories to pair with the new piece of hardware.
Yet Nintendo was so concerned about backwards compatibility that they came up with an elegant solution: your Nintendo Switch accessories will just work on the Nintendo Switch 2.
This is according to technical director Tetsuya Sasaki during our hardware dev Q&A yesterday. Because so many games are backwards compatible, the hardware used to play them needed to be supported. This means your original Joy-Cons, Pro Controller, GameCube controllers and more will be compatible with the Nintendo Switch 2.
Honestly, this is such a win, especially for families who have invested so heavily into the Switch ecosystem. Not having to completely drop an extra $80 for a Pro Controller makes the sticker shock of the new games a much easier pill to swallow.
Though you really should get the new Pro Controller - it is really, really good.
It can trace the rays
Because the Nintendo Switch 2 leverages AI upscaling via DLSS, it opens many possibilities for game developers from both a performance and feature standpoint. One area the hardware allows is ray tracing.
I’m not expecting much here - it’s a mobile chip that, while we don’t know the full specs of, is likely on par performance-wise as the Ampere line of Nvidia GPUs. But it does open the door for developers to push some visuals that are normally reserved for Nintendo’s historically more performant rivals.
Do I need ray tracing on my 7.9” handheld screen? No. But it would be nice.
Games look utterly great
Speaking of DLSS and ray tracing, I’ll take this time to say that, overall, games look utterly great. Sure, if you know what you’re looking for, you can spot some of DLSS’ telltale signs it’s at work - from dithering on hair and blades of grass to some of the finer details around sharp edges in scenes.
But in motion, especially on the handheld screen, these issues were largely absent. DLSS, thanks to the fact it’s powered by a ML algorithm, will simply continue to get better and more accurate over time as well - and many of those signs could melt away as the algo learns from all the data it’s being fed.
A game where I thought it would be most noticeable was Mario Kart World. Typically, in racing games, I see artifacting around wheels, wheel wells, and the body of the car, especially in parts of the screen where your eyes might not be focused. Yet everything looked utterly crisp in Docked mode, the 4K60fps presentation (though, it should be noted that this isn’t confirmed to be native resolution or simply upscaled to 4K) was the best I’d ever seen a Nintendo game look.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the same. Hyrule was simply gorgeous with the extra pixel count, and in motion it was as smooth as butter.
One game that struggled, but it should be noted that it’s not the final product, was CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk is a heavy game, and I doubt it was running any ray tracing. But it was evident there was some sort of upscaling going on to try to hit its 30fps framerate target. I’ll admit, too: I play Cyberpunk 2077 on an RTX 5090-powered machine. I’m spoiled. But it never fully looked or felt smooth to play, though it was extremely fun when things came together. I know the team at CDPR are technical wizards and were able to get The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to run pretty well on the original Switch, I’m pretty confident in their abilities here as well.
More to come…
These are just some of my takeaways from my hands-on yesterday. Throughout today and into the weekend we’ll have a few more articles trickle out with more dedicated game impressions, from Drag x Drive, Mario Kart World, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Donkey Kong: Bananza, as well as a round up of some of the third party experiences talked about here. So as Nintendo would say, “Please look forward to these articles.” Or something.
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