Nintendo’s beefy hour-long Direct dedicated to Nintendo Switch 2 was entertaining to watch, but it was packed to the brim with information. Some Switch 2 games were shown off, but their announcements were surrounded by hardware overviews, third-party port sizzle reels, Nintendo Switch 1 port announcements, and more. To get the best idea of what Nintendo’s new system is capable of, though, you’ll want to see the Switch 2 exclusive games in action. To help with that, I’ve rounded up every trailer for a Switch 2 exclusive game that was shown off during the latest Nintendo Direct, and will be sharing my thoughts on each.
Mario Kart World’s trailer is nearly five minutes long and gives an extremely thorough overview of the new kart racer. The first half of the trailer is an exciting sizzle reel of gameplay, showing off many of the beautiful tracks, helpful power-ups, and iconic characters players can experience while playing the game. It also confirms some odd kart racers, like the cow from Moo Moo Meadows and Biddybud from Super Mario 3D World. While its $80 price tag stings a bit, this trailer suggests that it’ll be worth that price as it’s packed to the brim with content.
Mario Kart World launches alongside Nintendo Switch on June 5.
With each new system, Nintendo typically releases some gimmicky game to show off the new controller’s capabilities. In Switch 2’s case, that game is Drag x Drive, which is a 3v3 sports game where all the controls are based on Joy-Con 2 functionality. As such, the trailer mainly shows a person performing all of the different motions required to play the game, like pushing the Joy-Cons back and forward to move or waving the Joy-Con to signal that you want the ball. I’m not sure how much staying power Drag x Drive will have as a multiplayer game, the tech demo curious part of me wants to give it a shot.
Drag x Drive will be released for Nintendo Switch 2 sometime this summer.
As someone who really enjoyed Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and always wanted to learn more about Zelda’s time-traveling adventures that happened during the events of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, I’m looking forward to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. The added power of the Switch 2 hopefully means that Age of Imprisonment won’t be as laggy as some of the other Musou games on Switch are. Equal parts cinematic and gameplay-focused, this two-minute trailer was quite possibly my favorite announcement from the Nintendo Direct.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment currently has a vague release window of “this winter.”
The biggest shocker of the whole Nintendo Switch 2 Direct was probably when Nintendo revealed that it was backing FromSoftware to create a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive Souls-related game. It’s called The Duskbloods, and the YouTube description teases us that it is a multiplayer game. The trailer evokes the look and feel of FromSoftware titles like Elden Ring, although its world seems more connected to British architecture. Although I’m not the biggest fan of FromSoftware’s catalog, there’s no denying this is a massive, impressive-looking announcement for Switch 2.
The Duskbloods will be released for Nintendo Switch 2 sometime in 2026.
This is the weakest trailer of the bunch, simply because it does not show any of the game in action on Switch 2. That’s likely because this trailer focused more on the impact of Nintendo reviving a cult classic GameCube game and bringing Masahiro Sakurai back to direct the game. It’s certainly neat, but I don’t think I’ll be watching this trailer as much as the others as I try to better understand what games on Switch 2 will be like.
Kirby Air Riders will be released for Nintendo Switch sometime later this year.
Finally, we have the game that closed out this Nintendo Direct: Donkey Kong Bananza. It’s awesome to get a new 3D Donkey Kong platformer for the first time since Donkey Kong 64, and in general, this is a really well put-together trailer. It starts by showing off the large worlds, making you think it might be a new 3D Mario, before having Donkey Kong slowly but loudly bash through a wall, revealing that he has been redesigned and that this game is focused squarely on DK. From there, a grab bag of gameplay footage shows some of the enjoyable-looking destructive mayhem players can get themselves into while playing Donkey Kong Bananza. I can’t wait to get my hands on this one.
Donkey Kong Bananza launches on July 17.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.