The 20 Best Nintendo Switch Games of All Time

Although he’s been kicking around since 1983, Luigi has long been second fiddle to his more outgoing brother Mario. And while he slowly became a fan favorite over the years, developing a goofier, often-ironically cool (for being uncool) persona, the green-clad plumber rarely got his moment to shine until his big solo franchise debut in 2001’s Luigi’s Mansion. Yet even those games are few and far between, with only two outings across nearly two decades.But when it came time for Nintendo to show players that the Switch meant business in its nascent years, they needed the big guns. It was finally Luigi time again. Developed by Next Level Games, Luigi’s Mansion 3 sees the sibling duo and perpetual third wheel Princess Peach (along with her servants) jet setting on a group vacation, arriving at their digs at a mountainous hotel ominously called The Last Resort. Then come the ghosts. Narrowly escaping an attack by King Boo, the villain of the previous Mansion games, it’s up to the less-brave brother to steel himself to save the day again.The Luigi’s Mansion series has always been different from the other Mario games but taking a more methodical approach to its action gameplay. Rather than sprinting and jumping around, players are tasked with creeping around dark corridors armed with a flashlight and a vacuum on the hunt for peculiar ghosts. The third game in the franchise is easily the best of them, weaving together a Resident Evil-like structure wherein Luigi must inch his way floor-by-floor and back again to the basement as he unlocks new items and pathways. Although it’s rarely ever scary, the visuals on the Nintendo Switch give the game an effectively eerie vibe, with shadowy corner lit by candles and flashlight flickers that impressively catch the particle effects of dust and grime floating in the air.A great couch co-op game wherein second players can be an oozy doppelganger of Luigi to solve complex puzzles, Luigi’s Mansion 3 modernized and deepened a beloved franchise, showing that even the younger sibling series deserves attention.

Despite being essentially the biggest media property ever, there’s always been something humble about Pokémon. After breaking out on the original Game Boy, and subsequently taking over the world, the games have mostly been smaller, kid-friendly RPGs that stuck to handheld devices (after all, they are pocket monsters).Yet, even as the series evolved, the mainline entries rarely tried to be anything more in scope. When they did, like with 2019’s Sword and Shield duology — the first generation of Pokémon developed for a home console — the results were decidedly lackluster. Although they’d always sell well, by the 2020s, it was time for Pokémon to change.Enter Pokémon Legends: Arceus, an “interquel” game that serves partly as a spin-off of the main series, allowing it to break some of the established rules of the franchise. A time travel story, Arceus is set in the earlier days of Pokémon’s world, back when living alongside the magical creatures was less of a status symbol predicated on pet ownership-meets-dog fighting, and more about survival.“Survival” is key, as Arceus is the first game in the series that actually allows players to be attacked directly by wild Pokémon. By changing the static, turn-based combat of the classic formula into a more dynamic action-oriented experience, Arceus catches the franchise up with the times and makes the most meaningful changes to the experience that Pokémon has seen in decades.Although more mainline entries and remakes have continually rolled out, they all feel stuck in the past. Pokémon Legends: Arceus feels like the true way forward for the franchise — and it partially is, with a sequel arriving later in 2025 — but it remains the definitive take on pocket monster roleplaying on the Nintendo Switch.

Another of Nintendo’s many cute characters that has become a mainstay for the brand, Kirby is rarely afforded the same level of respect as the Mario brood. Trotted out periodically for an experimental spin-off or a showcase for features in a new device, Kirby’s initial presence on the Nintendo switch mostly amounted to retro game inclusions in the NES online library and a handful of bargain bin eShop games designed as low-cost distractions for kids. The little guy doesn’t even get invited to Mario’s parties or to play golf.But with Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the perpetually famished fluffball finally got his due. The first-ever fully 3D Kirby game, The Forgotten Land brought the franchise’s platforming formula (“eats things, become them”) to a more gorgeous virtual space. While it remains a more simplistic kind of a game than, say, Super Mario Odyssey, Kirby’s big moment for the Switch makes for one of the most engrossing ways to gorge yourself on literal eye candy.Players can go it solo or in two-person cooperative play, exploring each of the linearly designed levels, taking down baddies and sucking up items to take on their traits. You can literally inhale a car, which results in a somewhat haunting image of Kirby outstretched around the vehicle’s body like an engorged snake swallowing an entire egg (it’s weird!).At times the gameplay feels like it’s from a long-lost Nintendo 64 game, one that today’s adults might still have trapped in their foggy memories. But that’s to its benefit; Kirby games are generally deeper than they initially appear, especially as endgame challenge become increasingly difficult. If Kirby and the Forgotten Land ends up being the only mainline entry in a while, it’s a worthy milestone to enjoy while the pink puffball gets put back on the shelf to wait for his next go around.

Everyone knows Nintendo as being the premiere family-friendly company in gaming, which is why it was such a shock when they stepped in to publish PlatinumGames’ Bayonetta 2 as a Wii U exclusive in 2014. Bayonetta is a gruesomely violent hardcore action game from the creators of Devil May Cry that stars a gun-toting hypersexualized witch clad in skintight leather and ludicrously high heels (that are also guns).Needless to say, it was surprising. And although it didn’t sell great (it was on the Wii U after all), picking up Bayonetta seemed like the kind of out-of-left-field risk Nintendo hadn’t taken in a long time, which is why the promise of a sequel for the Switch had fans salivating. After an eight-year wait, Bayonetta 3 finally arrived in 2022 and delivered exactly what people wanted: more Bayonetta.With breakneck action, consisting of multiple attack systems, weapons, and split-second dodges that activate a slow motion “Witch Time,” Bayonetta 3 is among the best hack-and-slash games ever made. Its story is multiversal gobbledygook, but its hardcore gaming credentials are sound; there’s almost nothing like on the Switch. Bayonetta 3 is in many ways the most un-Nintendo like game ever published by the brand, but its adult-only intensity is a stellar change of pace, and shows a willingness to make absolutely wild choices that hopefully will carry over into the next generation for Switch 2.

A huge part of Nintendo’s legacy as a developer is how well-designed their games are. From the NES era on, series like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda cemented gameplay mechanics and ideas that defined the industry, and a huge part of that is their philosophy to level design. Exceptionally well-paced to introduce new mechanics or types of challenges before ratcheting up the tension with hard-learned skills, the Super Mario Bros. games are the kind that players obsessively play over and over, taking years to master.That art of the challenge is what’s driven Super Mario Bros.’ speedrunning and modding community throughout the years, with tech savvy players taking it upon themselves to dig into the code of the games to create exponentially more difficult custom levels. There’s always another mountain to climb.Nintendo (eventually) capitalized on this with 2015’s Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, which gave players full rein to create their own brutally difficult or sloppily silly levels in the Mushroom Kingdom — this time, under the watchful eye of its owner. The sequel, 2019’s Super Mario Maker 2 extensively opened up that toolkit to include assets and visual elements from not the Super Mario Bros. 1 or 3, but later entries like Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros. Wii U, and even Super Mario 3D World, the 2.5D isometric style that literally changes the dimensions of the play space.With so many variations possible, Super Mario Maker 2 is an ideal platform for creative minds looking to spend their time constructing their own challenges rather than simply topple Nintendo’s. It’s also created a fervent appetite for other Maker games — namely Zelda, although whether the company is willing to break open that particular pandora’s box remains to be seen.

Of all Mario-creator Shigeru Miyamoto’s crazy ideas, few are as bizarre as Pikmin. Inspired by his love of gardening, the game centers on a quarter-sized space captain trapped on an alien planet (spoiler: it’s Earth!), gathering resources to repair his wrecked ship. To do so, he uses slave labor, capitalizing on the instantaneous and undying devotion of little leaf-headed creatures called Pikmin.Equal parts real-time strategy game and cutesy puzzler, it’s a journey where players must scour flowery gardens and subterranean depths to scavenge Duracell batteries and buttons while sending thousands of adorable Pikmin to their deaths if necessary.Pikmin 4, which came out in 2023, is the best version of the series’ formula, bringing back some of the scalding difficulty from the first two entries that fell by the wayside in the third, while also adding new elements that make the game easier to manage and play moment-to-moment. Players control multiple members of the Rescue Corps, a spacefaring group whose job is to save Olimar, even though they immediately crash land and end up in the exact same predicament.Swapping between characters and dividing up different platoons of Pikmin makes the game into a multilayered puzzle and resource management game. Pikmin all adhere to different elemental strengths, some able to withstand fire while others breathe under water or provide a poisonous sacrifice to angry birds and toads in battle.As one of Nintendo’s most inventive franchises, Pikmin itself is a series that doesn’t necessitate much reinvention. Iterating on the core concept and doing it better each time is enough, and Pikmin 4 is the current pinnacle of that design, and a game that deftly toes the line between comforting, cozy gaming, and pervasive existential dread.

One of the biggest strengths of the Nintendo Switch is obviously its dual form factor as both a home console and a handheld device. It’s a feature that helped bolster its library by taking games that had been traditionally popular only on mobile devices like the Nintendo 3DS and upping the ante with a more premium feeling, largescale design.Initially released as a Nintendo Switch exclusive, Monster Hunter Rise (2021) embodies that philosophy better than any other game. Although the series originally launched on the PlayStation 2 all the way back in 2004, it found its greatest success as on portable devices like the 3DS, turning it into a global phenomenon that would sell millions of copies. Rise splits the difference, bringing the visual fidelity of a console entry like 2018’s Monster Hunter: World while also retaining the core on-the-go appeal that helped energize the franchise.Though more streamlined than the very mechanically dense and complex World, Rise is through-and-through a Monster Hunter game. Players are tasked with tracking down and killing massive beasts and harvesting their resources for stronger gear, again and again. It’s an intoxicating loop that can easily become a 100-hour plus time sink, making the original Nintendo Switch version of the game more desirable than the later ports to PlayStation and Xbox; if you’re going to be fully locked in on the hunt, you might as well being taking it wherever you go.

Before releasing Bayonetta 3, PlatinumGames got their shot at creating an entire new IP for Nintendo in the form of 2019’s Astral Chain, a cyberpunk- and anime-inspired action game that bears all the hallmarks of the developers’ DNA. Although less salacious than Bayonetta, Astral Chain features the same high-octane combat, this time featuring dual protagonists who can chain together their attacks in tandem to take down baddies.But unlike their previous games, which lean almost entirely on the combat, Astral Chain also incorporates aspects of the detective genre. Set in a dystopian future, it follows a pair of twins who serve as police officers in the game’s megacity, charged with putting a stop to a string of recent interdimensional events wherein creatures called “chimeras” are breaking through from the Astral Plane to wreak havoc on the physical world. In between combat encounters, players must lead their choice of twin as their primary character to speak with and interview NPCs to gain clues about the nature of the aberrations, allowing them to solve puzzles and advance the story along the way.The investigation elements add a layer of complexity to what’s otherwise an action-oriented game, but there’s also surprising depth to the battles themselves, which force players to control two entities at once: the twin and a spectral being called a “Legion,” who’s tethered to the lead character and assists while fighting. Controlling two characters at once without stopping down for a more turn-based system can be confusing at first, but Astral Chain sticks the landing on creating a dynamic that’s complex without being over complicated, and its twisting sci-fi story makes for one of the better narrative adventures on the Nintendo Switch.

With the sheer volume of Mario games released each console generation, from all the sports-based spin-offs and party games, you’d almost certainly assume that there’s also a steady stream of classical designed 2D platformers coming out that play like the original games. But there aren’t! Prior to Super Mario Bros. Wonder in 2023, Nintendo had mostly focused on creating 3D or pseudo-3D games, slowly biding its time while figuring out just how to meaningfully push forward the idea of a traditional Mario game. Somewhere in between the 11-year gap between New Super Mario Bros. Wii U and Wonder, the answer became clear: Let Mario be weird.The basics of Wonder should be familiar to anyone who’s ever picked up a Mario game. After a paper-thin setup, players can choose from a handful of characters from the Mushroom Kingdom to jump, sprint, and head-bop their way through colorful levels filled with perils. And while the fundamentals are the same, utilizing power-ups to change Mario’s abilities like shooting fire and ice, Wonder twists the concept by making power-ups stranger (like turning players into a bulldozing elephant) or applying them to the world design itself, springing inanimate objects to life or warping the perspectives between the foreground and distant backdrop. Heavily inspired by Alice in Wonderland, it’s a game that aims to present familiar ideas before subverting them in technicolor surrealism.There are also smaller changes to its design elements that might go unnoticed at first but ultimately bleed through. Gone are the ticking timers for each level which force players to race to the finish even at the cost of precision during jumps; in Wonder, the goal is the soak in the world, scanning for irregularities or oddities that might lead to a secret area or reality-warping change up. It’s also one of the very few aesthetic redesigns for the Mario characters, utilizing a fresh art direction that makes each more emotionally expressive and reactive to their environment. Rather than the more generic polygonal designs that previous entries had since the early 2000s, here each character model eschews realistic proportions to flatten their silhouette, showing more of their face and body language than before. It’s an intentional throwback to how sprites were created for the NES era, etching in characteristics between the pixel lines, and the result feels timeless.

There was a time when most North American audiences had no clue what a Fire Emblem game was. With the introduction of the series’ characters Marth and Roy in 2001’s Super Smash Bros. Melee, many fans were left scratching their heads, wondering who these two sword-wielding heroes were. But interest was piqued, and after a heavy push for localization efforts by Nintendo, Fire Emblem has gone on to become one of the premiere franchises for the company worldwide.Following years existing primarily on handheld-only devices like the Nintendo DS, Fire Emblem returned to home consoles in all its glory with 2019’s Three Kingdoms — by far the series’ most ambitious effort in both scope and design. True to its roots, the game remains a complex tactical RPG, wherein players must deploy troops and make strategic decisions on a chess-like isometric battlefield. What’s new in Three Houses is its overall framework, which ties together three narrative branches the player must choose to follow in a school setting that feels more like something from a text-based game or dating simulator than a standard tactical RPG.With a sprawling narrative that necessitates multiple playthroughs to follow each thread to its end, Three Houses blends all the sociopolitical intrigue the series has historically been known for with a soapier Gossip Girl-esque high school dynamic. Somehow, it works, and makes Fire Emblem: Three Houses one of the most approachable entries in the franchise even as it belies its mechanical depth. If Nintendo is smart, they’ll hit the ground running on the Nintendo Switch 2 with a sequel that continues expanding on the work done here.

Unlike its competitors, Nintendo isn’t well known for buying up third-party studios to make its games. With such meticulous commitment to detail and oversight, the few times they have acquired developers have usually led to spectacular results, as is the case with their 2007 purchase of Monolith Soft, creators of the Xenoblade Chronicles series.Over the course of four games, Xenoblade Chronicles has become one of the best action role-playing franchises in gaming, famous for crafting gargantuan open worlds that rival pop culture favorites like Skyrim while delivering emotionally gripping stories in a sci-fi fantasy setting evocative of the greatest Japanese RPGs of the Nineties.The latest entry, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, is widely considered the best of the already acclaimed franchise, with streamlined controls that allow players to control one of six characters in real-time during combat, swapping between avatars on a whim while the others remain active as NPCs. Making an action-RPG exhilarating is key when the campaign itself can stretch up to 150 hours; it’s a game that’s consistently doling out new locations to explore, abilities to master, and twists in ever-unfurling narrative.While the game’s technical ambitions might’ve been too much for the Switch, with the game suffering visually at times, it remains an artfully designed epic that’s helped redefine Nintendo as a brand to follow for RPG fans who may have otherwise turned away from the company’s platforms after losing most of its big roleplaying game franchises to PlayStation in the early 2000s.

In the never-ending sea of live-service and competitive online games, Nintendo has historically kept its distance from the trend. Even though the Switch is home to games like Fortnite and Rocket League, the company itself has always shied away from online shooters — partially because of its lack of reliable online services — but most likely because the vibe just doesn’t gel with their more tactile approach to local multiplayer gaming.But then came Splatoon. A third-person shooter originally released for the Wii U, Splatoon takes all the various philosophies of a Nintendo game — bizarre character inspirations, a family-friendly tone, and a singular gimmick — and turns it into a shockingly engaging competitive online experience. 2022’s Splatoon 3 utilizes the power of the Switch to make both its physics-based gameplay and online connectivity better than ever before.The premise is simple (sort of): players take on the role of Inklings, little pointy-eared squid children who can use paint guns to cover the surfaces of the arena map. The primary goal is for two teams of 4v4 to cover up the bulk of the play arena with their ink, blasting each other (non-violently!) along the way. The hitch, of course, is that Inklings can “swim” in their own paint-like splatters, meaning that the more of the map is covered by one team, the faster that team can traverse and control the area. The team that covers the most surface area wins.There are other modes too, like cooperative boss battle runs and card games, but the true appeal of Splatoon is its innovative take on the multiplayer shooter that’s accessible and relatively stress-free for everyone, even as kids learn to melt into goop and surprise appear behind their enemies like the T-1000.

While it might be a stretch to call Mario Kart 8 Deluxe a new game (it’s technically a re-release of a 2014 entry), it’s safe to say that Nintendo wasn’t joking when the called the title “deluxe.” Strategically planned as one of the key launch titles for the Nintendo Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe arrived with all of the content the original had, as well as waves of updates in the years that followed that added 48 new courses to the base game — enough to justify a brand-new installment altogether.But at its core, it’s just Mario Kart. One of the most beloved franchises in gaming, its ease of play and competitive nature makes the series one a favorite among gamers across generations. It’s a game that kids can play with their friends or parents, and parents can pick up to pair with a couple drinks to relive their dorm days.Mario Kart 8 Deluxe isn’t even one of the versions that has a big gimmick, like 2003’s Double Dash which forced players to use two different drivers or the Wii edition, which prided itself on motion-controlled steering. Instead, Mario Kart 8 just sticks to the core elements of what makes the series work. It’s simple to understand, tough to master, and is pretty much always fun (unless you’re hit with a blue shell. Fuck those things).

When it arrived at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons felt like the distraction that everyone in the world needed. At a time when everyone was trapped in their homes and mind palaces, the ability to usher off to a beachy island resort with anthropomorphic tanuki and bird friends was a much more desirable alternative to the depressing state of the real world.But to say that New Horizons’ only good attributes are tied to the collective Stockholm Syndrome of 2020 undercuts the many beautiful qualities of the game. As a social simulator, it’s a little bit simple compared to games like The Sims, only requiring simple interactions in between farming for resources and house building, but for what it lacks in the ability to play god, it makes up for extensively with charm.New Horizons lets players build their own island getaway (or compound, depending on your predilections), but there’s a natural flow to it and the way customization options and abilities are doled out while teaching users how best to utilize the resources at hand. It’s the kind of game where busywork is the goal; chopping down trees and chasing down bugs with a net is mindless fun, but locking into the monotony bears its own rewards as creative expression comes to the forefront in how islands are constructed. By the time you’re doing straight up contracting work to install a new reflecting pool in the town square, you’ll realize that actions that began months ago are finally bearing fruit. But where did the time even go?Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn’t the most tasking game, but it is one where every task feels somewhat therapeutic. While some may prefer to sink their time in stat-crunching dungeon crawls or the endless loop of competitive battle royales, it offers a more relaxing way to put a mind at ease.

When given the Herculean feat of following up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, many doubted Nintendo’s ability to find a meaningful way to advance the series. After perfecting the concept of an open world, would the answer be reverting to something smaller? What would a new Zelda game even look like in the wake of the entry that felt pretty much definitive.The solution was a lot of things at all once. But really, it was just about more. Everything players liked about 2017’s Breath of the Wild — its environment, tone, and exploration — is present and them some. The already massive world that seemed almost too big for the Switch was doubled in size. The more gripping stories from Zelda games past were woven into the more subdued melancholic tone of the modern era. Enjoy building things in Minecraft? Hell, throw that in too.On the surface, Tears of the Kingdom shouldn’t work as well as it does. It’s Breath of the Wild 2.0 (some would argue 1.5), but to chalk it up to a rehash is to miss everything special about the game. Yes, it builds on the existing world many explored ad nauseum before, but it reframes everything we know through conflict. What happens when you save the day, and everything goes to shit anyway? By ruining the hard work from the past, every existing location in Tears of the Kingdom is one players don’t want to see, they need to. What happened to that little farm tucked away in the woods? Where are all our friends? Did they even survive?By placing players in the shoes of a world-weary Link who’s already lost, yet again, it takes the framework of the original game — which dropped players in a time when the characters had emotional memory of their situations — and grants the same to us. After playing through Breath of the Wild and now having to pick up the pieces in its aftermath, players are able to feel the despair that Link felt previously as he regained his memories and came to the realization that he failed.For every intricate system to puzzle box to break open, Tears of the Kingdom is really more of an emotional experience. It still does everything right, even when the consequences go wrong.Also, you can build giant mechs to rain fire on goblins and cyclops. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Super Smash Bros., as a concept, is a blast. Predating the IP mash-up trend that’s wrapped his hands around pop culture’s throat over the last ten years, it began as a simple idea. What if Mario fought Pikachu? Who would win?That simplicity makes Smash Bros. not just a perpetually novel idea, but one that’s endlessly fun. Like most Nintendo games, it’s easy enough to pick up, but its fighting systems house a wellspring of complexity to the point where it became a fixture of the fighting game and esports communities, going toe-to-toe in global popularity alongside heavy hitters like Street Fighter and Tekken.Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the pinnacle of that concept, to the point that there may never even need to be another installment. With 89 playable characters ripped from all corners of gaming, it’s both a nostalgia bomb and constantly surprising experience to play. How does anyone know the inner workings or best strategies to combat that many fighters? It doesn’t really matter, because chaos is part of the appeal.Crossovers may be all the rage these days, but there’s no content farm on the planet that has nailed the ability to bring together characters and world that have no right to fit together as well as Nintendo did with Smash. The fact that the novelty never really wears off, and that there’s a highly complex competitive fighting game beneath it, makes Super Smash Bros. Ultimate a one of a kind experience.

Everyone loves Tetris. It’s just a fact. Since helping launch the Game Boy in 1989, Alexey Pajitnov’s addictive puzzler has become more than just iconic, it’s a deep-seated part of the world’s cultural psyche.But how does one make a perfect game even better? Many have tried, with hundreds of iterations of Tetris popping up throughout the years. But what if the right recipe for the ultimate Tetris experience has been right of us all along. Cribbing the battle royale framework from games like Fortnite and PUBG, Tetris 99 takes the thing people love most about the game — meditative self-competition — and blows it up. Rather than competing to topple your own or someone else’s high score, it’s now about taking other people down directly.Tetris 99 has players (99 of them, obviously) all engaging at the same time to clear row after row of Tetrimino blocks. Clearing rows and stacking combos dumps trash onto other opponents, making it more difficult to press on as each is knocked out one-by-one. It’s a simple conceit, but like Tetris itself, the genius is how straightforward it is.While the original game is an evergreen staple, one that can be played anywhere, anytime, and remains pleasurable, Tetris 99 ups the ante by instilling in fans a different kind of obsession. Getting totally crushed by a faceless foe online is an unbeatable motivator to dive by in for another go of the game that practically coined the phrase, “One more round.”

For all the great 2D Mario games, there’s now multiple generations of players who mostly know the mustachioed plumber by his work in 3D. Entries like Super Mario 64 (1996) and Super Mario Galaxy (2007) didn’t just help reinvent the series on its own terms, but innovated the ways in which movement and action in three-dimensional space could work for the industry at large.With such a pedigree, 3D Mario games tend to be an event. Nintendo generally spends years brewing the right concept and direction, to the extent that there may only ever be a single one produced for each of their devices (the Wii U didn’t have one at all). Suffice to say, there was a lot of pressure placed on Super Mario Odyssey as the first big 3D Mario game of the high-definition era. At a time when most other companies had eschewed their cutesy mascots and 3D platformers without intense action had mostly gone the way of the dodo, what could Mario bring to the table that hadn’t been before?True to its name, Odyssey feels like a long road through all the franchise’s history, and a celebration of everything fans worldwide love about the character. Like Super Mario 64, Odyssey lets players control Mario through a series of levels that serve as small sandboxes rife for exploration. The goal is to chase down every secret, collect every moon, and fell every oddball baddie utilizing Cappy (a sentient hat) that let’s Mario possess the bodies of foes and items. Slapping a goomba with the cap turns Mario into a pint-sized menace nipping at the heels of bigger enemies.It’s a goofy conceit, one befitting the playful nature of all things Mario. But with reliably inventive level design, some pretty serious challenges, and big moments that serve as nostalgic callbacks to the history of the franchise, Super Mario Odyssey manages to feel like the Platonic ideal of what a 3D Mario game should be.

Although the term “Metroidvania” wouldn’t be coined until the 2000s, anyone who’s played a Metroid game would have already known what it meant. The series, which dates back to 1987 on the NES, was one of the first big 2D open-world games, allowing players to explore in dense verticality the subterranean depths of its map, progressively getting stronger and backtracking to previous gated areas. Since then, practically every company has taken a stab at their own version of the subgenre and incorporated many of its key designs into larger action games as a whole.And while Nintendo themselves refashioned the Metroid franchise into its own take on the first-person shooter with 2002’s Metroid Prime, leaving the 2D premise to become fodder for indie creators to iterate on, fans have long waited for a return to the roots of the series — something that seemed like a pipe dream right until it wasn’t.2021’s Metroid Dread wasn’t just a return to form for the franchise that had been mostly left to the dustbin since the colossal failure of the abysmally received Other M (2010), it was also a return to a very specific old-school mentality for Nintendo. While most of its modern games have a little bit of their edge shaved off to be accessible, Dread leans full-tilt into a retro level of difficulty and an eerie, mature tone that’s almost non-existent in the company’s more recent portfolio.Unlike the Prime trilogy that serves as prequels within the canon, Dread is a full-on sequel to the Game Boy Advance game Fusion (2002), and centers on bounty hunter Samus Aran (at the time more famous for Smash Bros. games than her own), who is once again left destitute on an alien planet and forced to survive in the darkness. Players must find their way through the labyrinthine hollow of the planet, perpetually hunted by a psychotically stone-cold killer robot named EMMI. With a tone reminiscent of the original games (who themselves were inspired by the film Alien), the sequences featuring EMMI are the closest thing to jump-scared horror than Nintendo’s ever done.Compared to games like Super Mario Odyssey or Tears of the Kingdom, Metroid Dread might seem small — and that’s partly true. But smaller doesn’t always mean lesser, and while Nintendo has done wonders to innovate and reinvent itself, it’s also left behind a lot of its more hardcore audience that was weaned on their games in the Nineties. Metroid Dread feels like a return to Nintendo’s scrappier roots; it’s a thrill ride that requires careful thought and tight reactions all the same. It might be a one-off, but Dread showed a side of Nintendo many assumed we’d never seen again.