Putting together a list of the best Nintendo Switch games isn’t easy. There are thousands of different titles available to download on the beloved handheld, many of which are excellent first-party games or indie smash hits from talented external studios. Put it this way: there’s a reason the Switch has been the best selling console almost every month for three years in a row, and it’s not just because PS5s are rarer than unicorns – if you did get one though, there are loads of upgraded PS4 games you can play on PS5.
Anyway, our list of the best Switch games is fairly hefty given just how many bangers there are on this console, so we’ve put the entries in alphabetical order to make it easier for you to see if your favorite made the cut. This also means people won’t come at us with Omega Cannons or Master Swords for not putting Extremely Niche Game 4.3 Remix Remastered above Breath of the Wild, and allows us to give the top slot to something very close to our hearts. If you don’t like it, maybe you should… switch things up. You hated that? Our bad, we’ll do the ol’ switcheroo and get someone else in. Still not impressed? Ninten-d’oh!
Sorry about that. Here are 35 of the best Switch games to play on Nintendo’s handheld.
A Short Hike
If you’ve ever wanted to turn into a bird and run, climb, swim, and soar through a gorgeous provincial park on a cosy little island far removed from the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life – which, let’s be real, is a pretty niche desire to have – then A Short Hike is the game for you.
Breezy traversal meshes with clever puzzle design and infectiously funny writing to create a brief but brilliant experience that teems with character and warmth. After spending an hour or two in Hawk Peak Provincial Park, you’ll inevitably learn the lesson that short games aren’t inherently curt. On the contrary, most of these titles revel in how economic they are with their time, keeping things tight and terse in order to pack a succinct story with powerful context instead of spreading not enough butter over too much bread. Nice little Bilbo Baggins quote for you there. Bet you weren’t expecting that in a blurb about birbs.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
It goes without saying that Animal Crossing: New Horizons deserves a place among the upper echelon of Nintendo Switch games, particularly now after it played such an important role in so many people’s lives during the pandemic. While it’s not for everyone – although clearly for a lot of people given that it had sold almost 35 million units as of Sep. 2021 – New Horizons is a wonderfully inspired game that rewards short bouts of play over an extended period of time.
Because of this, it’s the perfect game for anyone who only has a little bit of spare time to set aside every day. As you continue to do up your island – building homes for villagers, decking out museum exhibits, and putting a massive Godzilla statue surrounded by tarantulas next to Dodo Airport to show visitors you mean business – you’ll experience the exact opposite of diminishing returns. People take real pride in their Animal Crossing paradises, and you could too by investing just a little bit of effort every couple of days. We recognize that sounds like the ultra capitalist rhetoric of a certain silver-tongued tanuki, but we mean it. Honest.
Bastion
One of those precious few games that is truly timeless, Bastion is a must-play for anyone with any relatively modern console. It was the first game ever developed by Supergiant, the studio behind last year’s critically acclaimed Hades (one of the best indie games ever), and still feels fresh over a decade later. The writing is powerful while exercising intense restraint, the combat has a real weightiness to it, and the music… Well, let’s be real. It’s Supergiant – of course the music is incredible.
Inhabiting the threadbare boots of The Kid, Bastion tasks you with saving humanity’s final titular bastion as the gruff and grisly Rucks narrates the aftermath of the mysterious Calamity. It’s one the greatest games of all time, and is well worth picking up on Switch whether you’ve never played it before or are the certified whiz of Wharf District.
Bayonetta 2
There’s a very simple reason why so many Nintendo fans go absolutely feral about the possibility of Bayonetta 3 showing up at every single Direct: Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 are both outstanding games. If you’ve never passed through the Gates of Hell to shoot angels and devils with infernal feet guns you bought from a demonic bartender, well, what have you been up to since 2014? We’ll answer that for you: not very much.
To summarize the events of Bayonetta 2 here would not only be a spoiler, but a disservice to how relentlessly absurd it is. Instead, we’ll leave you with these two nuggets of purchasing advice: No studio designs combat like PlatinumGames, and no character does shootybangs like Bayo.
Dark Souls Remastered
There’s no refuting the fact that 2011’s Dark Souls is one of the best and most important games ever made. Despite being infamous for its unforgiving difficulty curve, Souls weaves wonderful tales into its brilliantly fragmented storytelling and has some of the best level design and combat in games. It helps that its medieval apocalyptic aesthetic is gorgeous, too.
All of the above strengths are further reinforced in Dark Souls Remastered, a new and improved version of the game that launched for Nintendo Switch in Oct. 2018. It may not be as cosy and cushy as something like A Short Hike or Animal Crossing, but it has a cute wolf in it! Who you… have to… kill…
Death’s Door
More death! Except this time, you’re a soul-stealing reaper working for a bureaucratic institution in an afterlife for crows. As you can probably tell from that description, Death’s Door is an inspired game, weaving subtle philosophical musings on the concept of mortality through a much more ostensible narrative of wit and whim. For example, you, a tiny crow, fight a house that shoots laser beams in the first 30 minutes of the game. It’s certainly… something.
In all seriousness, Death’s Door quickly established itself as one of the most revered games of 2021, enrapturing audiences all over the world while reminding people of what Titan Souls developer Acid Nerve is capable of. It’s also got quite a lot of Zelda DNA, meaning it’s a particularly great pick for any existing Nintendo fans consulting this list.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
If you’ve read our list of the best co-op games, you’ll probably already have a decent idea of where we’re going with this one. Although Divinity: Original Sin 2 is an excellent game in single-player, multiplayer is where it truly shines. After all, it is based on Dungeons & Dragons, a tabletop game that is special specifically because of the procedural scenarios it generates between people.
Also like D&D, Divinity revels in ridicule. While you’re technically supposed to help each other through the campaign, half the fun comes from deciding you’re going to be the treasonous thief who plants stolen trinkets on your teammates so you can laugh when they’re arrested by a million guards. If you’re up for some treachery in co-op, there’s no better game for brutal and boisterous betrayal.
Eastward
From slug-smacking frying pans to explosive ducks and flying pigs, Eastward is as imaginative as it is brilliant. Like Death’s Door, it also takes lessons from old-school Zelda, although the end result is remarkably different – which really testifies to just how enduring and versatile Nintendo’s gullible, grunty, and green-garbed hero is.
Eastward focuses on John and Sam, a ragtag duo from a subterranean city who accidentally find themselves in the midst of a post-apocalyptic conspiracy. Most other games would probably take a premise like this and make it extremely dark and gritty, but Eastward subverts that by leaning into absurdist comedy and familial warmth. It’s a deeply rewarding game to play, and its retro aesthetic makes it a perfect fit for the Switch’s handheld mode.
Fez
Despite originally launching for the Xbox 360 way back in 2012, Fez only came to Nintendo Switch – arguably the perfect platform for it – in 2021. Indie aficionados will likely remember Phil Fish’s landmark dimension-shifting platformer as a trailblazer in the movement for smaller, tighter projects in an industry dominated by triple-A titans.
Fez sees the eponymous hero realize his 2D world is actually one of four sides of a 3D one, at which point you can rotate through four perspectives around a cube in order to form new paths and solve puzzles It’s a game filled with mystery and awe, where all you need to succeed is a sense of real curiosity. There’s no combat, no fail states, no typical video gameiness designed to punish or prolong you – it’s just a series of intricate, clever puzzles that are there to be solved at your own pace. Plus ‘Fez’ is pretty fun to say, so once you inevitably love it, you’ll have a blast telling your friends to play it, too.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
We have a funny feeling that a lot of the people reading this list might have already tried their hand at this one, but on the off chance you haven’t, you probably should. Fire Emblem is a massively important series to the history of Nintendo, and the Switch’s Three Houses honors that legacy brilliantly.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a tactical RPG that blends social sim elements with a solid turn-based battle system. It’s quite an ambitious game in how it frames its narrative in that early decisions can have a major impact on how the story plays out, but to be honest most people do multiple playthroughs anyway. It doesn’t have three houses just so you can completely ignore two of them.
Hades
If you’re going to play one game on this list, make it this one. Hades is easily one of the best games to launch in the last ten years, using Greek mythology and roguelite sensibilities to completely reinvent how video game narratives can be structured – it wasn’t the first ever video game to win a Hugo Award for nothing. Its fast and frenetic combat isn’t for the faint of heart, but you can turn on a special feature called God Mode that increases your damage resistance with each death, effectively making every single run slightly easier than the last one.
While most of the game revolves around combining weapons and abilities for unique builds tied to each individual run, you can also chat to other Chthonic gods and figures in the House of Hades, most of whom are fancied by 90 percent of the internet. On top of that, like Bastion – which is also a Supergiant game – the music totally slaps. Obviously.
Hollow Knight
This is another one that people lose their minds over every single time there’s a Nintendo Direct on. While Hollow Knight: Silksong still has a TBA release date, the original game is available to play on Switch right now.
Hollow Knight is one of the best Metroidvanias of all time, brilliantly combining tacit platforming with tactile combat and thoughtful worldbuilding. We’re not sure whether or not it supersedes Ori in any of those categories – particularly Will of the Wisps – although the debate between these two games mostly boils down to personal preference. What we mean is, whether you played and liked Ori or played and disliked Ori doesn’t matter – Hollow Knight is a unique and brilliant game that any self-respecting Metroidvania fan needs to try at least once.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is one of the cutest platformers on any console right now, but it just so happens to be one of the best platformers available on Nintendo Switch. In this adventure Kirby takes to 3D for the very first time, and it is a massive success. The stages retain that Kirby charm, but Kirby is moving in a much larger environment, with a variety of abilities to help him along the way.
Collecting stars, saving Waddle Dees, and upgrading your various powers while visiting Waddle Dee Town is a great experience, and easily makes Kirby and the Forgotten Land one of the best Nintendo Switch games of 2022. Whether solo or with a friend, you need to play this game.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Anyone who played the first Hyrule Warriors game might think they know what to expect from its sequel, although Age of Calamity is a cut above its predecessor in virtually every way. Like all musou games – where combat involves fighting hundreds of enemies at once in a chaotic flurry of frenzied fists – it’s extremely fast paced and intense, although it’s also laden with quieter moments that tell us a lot about beloved characters like Zelda, Impa, and, obviously, Link.
Age of Calamity is a polarising game among fans of the Zelda series, but if anything that just makes it even more fascinating. Whether you’ve pumped hundreds of hours into Breath of the Wild or don’t know the difference between a bokoblin and a bomb bag, the latest Hyrule Warriors game has something for everyone. It even has a cute little robot thing that might one day grow up into a not-so-cute big robot thing.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Many people claim that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is not only the best Nintendo Switch game of all time, but the single greatest game ever made. While we disagree with that idea, Breath of the Wild’s merits are irrefutable. It’s an enormous game filled with endless opportunities to bend, break, and beguile it, with some of the best systemic design in the history of the medium.
It’s also a very ambitious reinvention of the Zelda series, eschewing traditional dungeons for a sprawling open world. It’s difficult to think of any other games that manage to properly articulate depth and scale as well as this one – there’s a reason just about every RPG released in the last few years has attempted to copy at least something from it.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
This is a much more conventional Zelda game, probably because it’s a remake of the original Link’s Awakening that came out for Game Boy way back in 1993. A lot of the story beats remain unchanged, but the visuals have been overhauled to support an aesthetic that is much cutesier by contemporary standards, but less cutesier for anyone with actual standards. Ahem.
Other than that and some welcome quality-of-life changes, Link’s Awakening on Switch is an excellent remake of one of the best games from one of the best series of all time. That’s quite an accolade, eh? You should probably play it.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
This is another remake of an older Zelda game – believe it or not, the Switch doesn’t have a whole lot of new Zelda games on offer – although 2011’s Skyward Sword is far more recent than Link’s Awakening.
While it originally reviewed well, Skyward Sword became a rather contentious game among Zelda fans for its unusual control scheme and distinct approach to dungeon design. Thankfully, the 2021 remake reinvigorated interest in the game, causing Zelda fans all over the world to reexamine their filthy biases and see Skyward Sword for what it really is: a phenomenal Zelda game with more heart than a lategame Link. That’s not to mention how inventive Skyhold is.
Also Groose. That hairdo… Timeless.
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Have you ever been invited on holiday somewhere by an unusually generous stranger? If so, we’d like to think you probably turned it down on account of the fact it’s probably (read: definitely) a scam. Unfortunately, Mario’s brother isn’t the brightest crayon in the shed. Sharpest tool in the pencil case? Smartest… Look, Luigi’s an idiot, alright?
Despite the protagonist’s gullible nature, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a brilliantly inventive game for all the family. Whether you want to bust ghosts solo or are more interested in corralling a team to hunt poltergeists with the aptly named Poltergust, this is a game that’s perfectly tailored to pretty much any situation. Just remember that no matter how well you perform, you’re the smart one – Luigi signed up for a weekend break in a haunted house run by a ghost king. No wonder Mario gets all the attention. If you’re after something a little spookier, our list of the best horror games has you covered.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
While Luigi’s Mansion 3 can be enjoyed in both single- and multiplayer, Mario Kart 8 is more suited for groups of friends and family. In fact, it’s one of the best multiplayer games ever made. You can definitely play on your own – the competitive elements of online multiplayer are intense – but there’s nothing quite like blue-shelling your best mate five metres from the finish line just because you’d rather see AI Bowser win than listen to the eternal gloating of a Rainbow Road champion.
With tons of characters to pick from – including some non-Mario fan-favorites like Link and Donkey Kong – Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is an endless font of family fun. Just don’t blame us when a stray Joy-Con finds itself lodged in your telly.
Mario Party Superstars
Get your friends around and play Mario Party. It’s a classic experience and fun for gamers of all ages and skill levels. The act of rolling a dice in a turn-based environment means anyone can join in on the action, and the minigames keep things exciting for the whole group. And of course, we all love to shout and scream at one another when stealing stars, right?
Mario Party Superstars is a “best-of” Mario Party, bringing together numerous classic boards and a huge number of beloved minigames. Super Mario Party is also a solid choice for party game fans, with entirely new boards and games that are optimized for JoyCon controllers.
Metroid Dread
Samus Aran stans almost broke the internet when Metroid Dread was announced at E3 2021. While it’s not another Prime game, Dread was an apocryphal 2D Metroid that had reportedly been cancelled up until its surprise reappearance, which explains the whole ‘almost broke the internet’ fiasco. The game has since come out and been received with open arms by long-time fans of the series and people who can’t tell a cross bomb from a cataris alike.
While we’ve got a few Metroidvanias on this list, Dread was a perfect way for the series to restate why it has a whole genre named after it today. Of Nintendo’s recent first-party efforts, Metroid Dread is extremely near the top of the list. EMMIs are very scary robot dogs though, so approach this one with caution.
Minecraft
What can we say about Minecraft that hasn’t already been said? That it’s one of the most popular games on the planet? That it’s endlessly replayable and constantly inventive? That it recently became the first game in history to surpass one trillion collective views on YouTube?
Whether you’re eight or 80, you definitely know what Minecraft is. It’s no surprise, then, that it’s obviously one of the best games you can play on your Nintendo Switch right now, and will probably be one of the best games you can play on your Nintendo Switch 10 in 2050. Minecraft owes much of its success to the fact it’s approachable to anyone with a means of playing it, so if you’ve got a Switch handy and have yet to experience its world of blocky goodness for yourself, maybe now is the time to lift up your pickaxe and mine to your heart’s content. Be sure to check out our list of the best Minecraft seeds first, though.
Monster Hunter Rise
It’s interesting that this comes after a game like Minecraft, because despite all its merits, Monster Hunter Rise is a game that requires real patience to master. It’s not that it’s unapproachable so much as it demands you learn its various systems and sensibilities before letting you progress further, which makes sense given that there’s no point in getting further in the game where you have no idea what you’re doing.
While some people might think this is just a hyper-violent game about battering dinosaurs with oversized battleaxes, it’s as much about preparing for your encounters by meticulously crafting the right gear and equipment as it is taking on colossal beasts with way too many teeth. If you’re willing to give it the time it deserves, you’ll probably find yourself down Rathalos rabbit holes before the week is out.
New Pokemon Snap
Sprinting Scorbunny, gallivanting Grookey, skulking Sobble – one of the most interesting things about Pokemon aside from making them spit fire in each other’s faces is how they behave in their natural habitats. While we get an idea of what this might look like from Pokedex entries in the mainline games and get to see all kinds of scenarios in the anime, nothing comes close to the natural majesty of New Pokemon Snap, where you can photograph everything from Blastoise Superman-flying across a reef to Tyranitar punching a rock to death.
It’s easy to look at a Pokemon photography game and assume it will be inferior to the mainline RPGs, but we’re being serious when we say that New Pokemon Snap is one of the best Pokemon games in well over ten years. Don’t believe us? Go for a spin in the NEO-ONE and experience the beauty of Mightywide River for yourself. You can thank us later.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
We already mentioned Hollow Knight earlier on, which is the Metroidvania most often discussed alongside Moon Studios’ wonderful Ori series. While some of you prefer playing as little bugs with skull faces, we’re way more into the stunning, almost incredibly interconnected world of Niwen.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps truly has it all. Lightning fast platforming? Check. Fluid, tactical combat with a range of unique weapons and enemies? Check. Level design so nuanced and painstakingly meticulous that every single time you make a mistake you want to plant your face in your Switch out of sheer embarrassment in the face of Ori’s superior intellect? Yeah, sorry. Check.
Pokemon Sword & Shield
As the latest mainline Pokemon game, there’s a good chance that anyone even remotely interested in Nintendo’s iconic series has already embarked on their own adventure across Galar. If so, you probably know exactly what to expect from Pokemon’s eighth generation – Scorbunny is the best starter, the Wild Area is fine, and Pokemon stories are still mostly aimed at kids and young adults. You know, because Pokemon is supposed to be for kids and young adults.
While Sword & Shield garnered a pretty lukewarm reception at launch, they’ve aged fairly well over the last few years and are now generally held in high regard by the wider community. With Gen 9 being tentatively rumored for late 2022, we’ve got a while yet before Gen 8 becomes irrelevant – even if you’ve already trounced Leon and his showoff Charizard, it might be worth giving the Galarian gauntlet another crack.
Shin Megami Tensei V
Atlus’ classic JRPG series – the one that basically did Pokémon before Pokémon – has its latest mainline entry exclusively on Nintendo Switch. A port could be on the cards in the future, but for now, this is the only place you can see this tale continue. Like in many Shin Megami Tensei games, the fifth entry sees Tokyo fall into a desert ruin that you must explore while negotiating with, fighting, and collecting demons.
Demons can be added to your party, evolved, leveled up, and even combined for unique transformations. You’re heavily encouraged to regularly add new demons to your team to give you essential stat buffs and resistances for upcoming boss fights. You will also spend portions of the game in the human world, leading a normal school life, but without Persona’s social links, it’s just not as engaging as building your demon squad.
Skyrim
Given that Skyrim has been ported to everything short of a microwave – has it been ported to a microwave? – it’s no surprise that Bethesda’s illustrious RPG is also available on Nintendo Switch. While it’s true that throwing fireballs at ancient dragons on a 50” 4K smart TV is obviously lovely to look at, there’s something really special about wandering through places like Blackreach and Labyrinthian while you’re lying in bed with the lights off, too.
Skyrim on handheld is a whole different experience to playing it on the big screen. There’s less spectacle, sure, but there’s way more sublimity. We’re aware of how pretentious that sounds, but also sometimes the truth is like that, ok? Play Skyrim on Switch and you’ll know what we mean. Fus ro on-to-the-next-game-on-the-list.
Slay the Spire
Roguelikes and roguelites – yes, there’s a difference, the latter allows some progression between runs – have been all the rage over the last few years, although Slay the Spire was one of the earliest hits in their recent resurgence. Combining devilish deckbuilding with procedurally generated paths and permadeath, Slay the Spire isn’t the most forgiving game around, although the brevity of each and every run makes it difficult to feel like you’ve ever really lost.
Slay the Spire is at all times riveting, gratifying, and deeply engaging, meshing gorgeous art with inspired encounter design and a host of complex mechanics. It’s also something you can flick on for 20 minutes in the morning before you get ready for work. It is extremely respectful of your time and always ready for you to jump back in for another run or five. Highly recommended.
Splatoon 2
While Splatoon 2 technically has a single-player story, Nintendo’s squiddy shooter is probably best known for its online component, where hybrid humanoid cephalopods shoot and slide their way across arenas drenched in ink.
Splatoon 2 has multiple game modes and is approachable to anyone regardless of whether or not they’ve got a huge amount of shooter experience. It’s a light and breezy game that’s as much about making mistakes as it is about precision shots, which is probably why the series has become so popular that Inklings are now in Nintendo staples like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Also Splatoon 3 is officially in development now, so you’ll probably want to brush up on your inking before that comes out.
Stardew Valley
Whether you’re into growing your own virtual vegetables or just want to gossip down the pub with Linus Grylls, Stardew Valley is a cushy little game that oozes character and warmth. Most people who know a little about it see it as a basic farming simulator that inspired a whole genre, but anyone who knows a lot about it can see it’s so much more than that.
Stardew Valley is as much a life simulator as it is a farming one. Sure, it’s mostly about picking seeds up from the local market so you can grow produce in your back garden, but it’s also got terrifying mines, wizards, and weird alien stuff. There’s a reason why the person behind this game’s next project is literally about a haunted chocolatier – Stardew isn’t really interested in conforming to any standards of normality.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
Opinions of Super Mario 3D World, which originally launched for the Wii U back in 2013, have always been mixed. Some people think it’s one of the best 3D Mario games on the market (it’s not), while others reckon it’s the worst Mario title of all time (it’s also not). It’s mostly just a decent Mario game that’s worth playing if you like platforming as a mustachioed plumber man.
Bowser’s Fury, on the other hand, is something else altogether. Released for the first time alongside the Switch port of Super Mario 3D World, it’s an open-world Mario game where you’re tasked with freeing Bowser from his imprisonment in Lake Lapcat. While it’s very similar to Super Mario 3D World, it has a free camera and is arguably a lot more fluid because of it. That’s not to mention its kaiju-esque, apocalyptic hellfire storm that rains down every couple of minutes. Basically: Bowser’s Fury good.
Super Mario Odyssey
While Bowser’s Fury is good, Super Mario Odyssey is by far and away one of the greatest platformers ever made – there’s a reason it has a whopping 97 on Metacritic. For context, the only games with a higher score than that are The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, SoulCalibur, GTA IV, and… GTA IV again. In case you hadn’t noticed, GTA IV is also very good.
Odyssey reaches Galaxy levels of catapulting Mario to new heights, which is particularly remarkable when you consider the plumber’s first appearance was way back in 1981. We reckon the idea of a sentient hat was liberally lifted from The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap – which, let’s be real, should be on Switch already – but Cappy is still pretty great. No Ezlo, though…
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Arguably the most famous fighting series of all time, Super Smash Bros. has been beloved ever since the first game launched for the N64 back in 1999. While each and every instalment in Nintendo’s illustrious smash-’em-up is good, Ultimate is… well, pretty damn ultimate!
Smash has always been known for bringing beloved video game characters from all kinds of different series together, but Ultimate takes that reputation to a whole new level, with the long-awaited Sora being the game’s 82nd playable fighter. It’s one of the best fighting games of all time – no other game lets you kick Sephiroth’s ass as Jigglypuff.
Tetris 99
The term “Tetris battle royale” seemed a bit ridiculous at first, but in typical Nintendo fashion, someone, somewhere made it work. If you think you’ve ever experienced sheer, unbridled frustration, then boy have we got a home truth for you: you haven’t. Not until you’ve lost 20 consecutive games of Tetris 99.
Tetris 99 works in a similar way to ordinary Tetris – you slot falling tetriminos into a rapidly growing wall in order to keep it as low as possible by completing and deleting lines – but you’re also up against 98 other people doing the same thing. The winner is the one who keeps their wall from reaching the top for the longest amount of time. It sounds simple. It’s not. It is great, though.
Tetris Effect: Connected
Tetris Effect is another fascinating spin on the 1984 classic, reinventing all of the game’s rules while offering players a real sense of adventure. The Connected version of the game adds co-op and competitive modes, but leaves the core experience intact. While it’s arguably best played in VR, anyone who gets motion sickness or doesn’t have a fancy, very expensive headset will get much of the intended, ahem, effect, just fine on Switch.
Unlike regular Tetris, Tetris Effect asks you to play in sync with music and incredible vistas. It’s a sensory experience like no other, and will irreparably change the way you look at geometric shapes slowly falling down a screen. They’re not just rectangles. They’re something else entirely.
Undertale
To be completely honest, you can’t write a list of the best games on anything without including Toby Fox’s inimitable Undertale. It’s one of the best games ever made in general, and something anyone with an interest in anything ought to experience at least once in their life.
Undertale isn’t like other RPGs. It’s a game where you can attempt to talk to a monster in turn-based combat, as opposed to smashing their face in. Also the monster in question might be your mom. It completely recontextualizes how morality works in video games, and is one of the most impressively and successfully meta efforts to ever grace the industry. If you haven’t played Undertale before, a) you should do that right now, and b) we’re really, really jealous of you. You’re in for a real treat.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
We’re not going to lie: the reason this list was structured in alphabetical order was so that we could correctly put The Witcher 3 in the top slot without drawing the ire of people who think it should be Breath of the Wild. We’re not explicitly stating that The Witcher 3 is the best game of all time – which would naturally make it the best Switch game of all time by extension – but we are saying that it’s at the bottom of the list, which in these kinds of lists is actually the top of the list, so… Look, you can’t get annoyed at us. This is where we’ve alphabetically arrived.
If you’ve read our list of the best RPGs of all time, then you’ll likely already know where we stand on The Witcher 3. It’s a sprawling, ambitious game teeming with monsters and magic, where some of the best storytelling in video game history is married to a captivating cast played by some of the greatest performers in the medium. That’s not to mention Hearts of Stone or Blood & Wine, the game’s two expansions that are arguably among the best add-ons of all time. We honestly can’t praise this game enough. Like, come on – it’s even affectionately called “The Switcher.” How could you not play that?
Xenoblade Chroncles Definitive Edition
The original Xenoblade Chronicles is one of the very best games you can play on the Wii, and it’s far better on the Nintendo Switch. Shulk’s journey across the gigantic Bionis and Mechonis – two ancient creatures that died in combat – is a touching one, and ends with some story beats that are close to impossible to see coming.
This is one of the best JRPG remasters you can play, and is a modern classic that will be talked about in the same hushed whispers as Chrono Trigger and Vagrant Story, just as Xenogears is.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Technically the third Xenoblade game, this one builds directly on the world established at the end of the original game, with totally new environments on the backs of new giant creatures, ones that still live and wander through the world independently. The environments are huge, and some of the enemies that inhabit them will be far stronger than anything you can deal with when first wandering through.
This game leans in a little harder on the anime aesthetic with some cute faces and typical tropes, and your tolerance for that may vary, but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is well worth persevering through that to see the end. The DLC expansion, Torna the Golden Country, is also well worth playing, giving you a new look at the events that took place just before Xenoblade Chronicles 2 kicks off – but you will need to understand the politics and events of the main game first.
Written by Cian Maher and Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.
