Nintendo showed off Super Mario Odyssey and Rocket League while announcing Metroid, Pokemon, and more at E3 2017. Here are all Nintendo’s biggest announcements.
As usual, Nintendo didn’t hold a press conference for E3 2017, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t at the show — or that it didn’t unveil new games.
The company instead hosting a special edition of its regular Nintendo Direct videos called Nintendo Spotlight, a pre-recorded video stream it will use to show off its upcoming Switch games.
That’s the easy part. We’ve embedded the video at the top of this page, so you can watch the whole thing right here.
After kicking off with a brief video highlighting some of the games we already knew about, like Arms and Splatoon 2, before heading straight into a series of new games due later in 2017 and in 2018.
The one big thing they didn’t announce? The much-anticipated (and rumoured) SNES Mini console, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for your nostalgia fix.
Unsurprisingly, Mario was the star of the show, in the second trailer for this year’s Switch exclusive Super Mario Odyssey, which is playable at E3 for the first time. The new trailer focused squarely on hats: both various types (Mario hat, evil top hat, sombrero) and the ability to use your hat to control other creatures (Goombas, T-Rexs, taxi cabs) . Oh, and we got that release date we’ve all been waiting for: 27 October.
We didn’t see much, but oh my god they’re making Metroid Prime 4. A logo and a bit of moody Metroid music was all it took to make this one of the biggest announcements of E3 2017 — even if there’s no release date yet.
Another game we didn’t actually see any footage from, Nintendo finally confirmed that it is developing the long-rumoured core Pokemon title for the Switch — it just might be a while before we get our hands on it. Good news for anyone disappointed by the Pokken Tournament DX announcement during the recent Pokemon Direct.
Our first honest-to-goodness new game announcement came courtesy of Nintendo’s resident pink sphere. Kirby is coming to the Switch in his own solo game, simply titled Kirby. It looks to be a co-op platformer in line with his last few big home console games, with a mess of different powers available.
Just like Kirby, Yoshi is getting his own Switch game next year. And just like Kirby, it’s got a very simple name: Yoshi. It looks unsurprisingly lovely.
The first game we saw in-depth wasn’t a brand-new announcement, but it was our first extended piece of footage. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a sequel to the popular Wii RPG, and is due to arrive later this year.
After a few hit 3DS titles and a phenomenally successful smartphone game, it’s no real surprise that Fire Emblem is on the way to the Switch. Warriors looks to be Dynasty Warriors-style fame featuring a bevy of characters from across Fire Emblem’s history, similar to the Wii U’s Zelda-themed Hyrule Warriors. It’s due out this autumn.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may have come out months ago, but that didn’t stop the Switch’s biggest title making an appearance. Nintendo took the excuse to show off the first footage of the Cave of Trials content from this month’s DLC, which looks to feature revamped puzzles in addition to combat challenges.
Nintendo also revealed the title of the winter story DLC: Ballad of the Champions. It looks like it may even let you play as the four champions from the game’s back story, who are also going to be made available as new Amiibo.
Here’s a big one: multiplayer favourite Rocket League is making an appearance on the Switch later in 2017, and will feature exclusive cars, local network play, and, most importantly, the chance to make your cars wear dinky little Mario hats.
Ubisoft already revealed Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle at its press conference, but Nintendo gave the game a brief mention here. We’ve embedded the trailer from Ubisoft’s announcement just in case you missed it then.
