Nintendo’s Switch 2 is at the very start of its life — and, as with every young console, excitement for the new hardware is held in check by the quest for something to play on it.

Six months in, and things are definitely looking livelier. Though the big guns remain few — Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, and Pokémon, basically — Nintendo has already released a broad range of interesting games from its B tier, including Kirby Air Riders, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, and Mario Tennis Fever. There’s also an arguable killer app summoned from the back catalog, in the form of the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

That’s in addition to (almost) the entire Switch library, playable under backward compatibility on Switch 2. You can check out our list of the best Switch games for inspiration — but at the foot of this article, we’ve also included a quick list of our recommendations of Switch games that, while not considered full-blown Switch 2 Editions, have received worthwhile free updates on the new console.

Our latest update to this list, on Feb. 16, added Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, Mario Tennis Fever, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo

The game that sent the Switch into the stratosphere during the pandemic is back with a weighty new update, and an official Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. There’s lots here to tempt you back: the new hotel and slumber islands, a bunch of game-changing quality-of-life improvements such as bulk crafting (finally!), playable classic game consoles, Zelda and Lego collabs, and more. It’s definitely enough to tempt you back, although if you overdosed on this game during lockdown it might still give you a mildly haunted feeling.

The Switch 2 Edition boasts a few exclusive features, including mouse control, but the real added value is vastly improved load times and reduced pop-in. For the real Animal Crossing heads, it’s an essential upgrade. —Oli Welsh

Arcade Archives 2: Ridge Racer

Image: Hamster/Bandai Namco

Is it perverse to use a powerful new gaming handheld to play a 32-year-old game? Probably. But I won’t apologize for revelling in this port of Namco’s seminal 1993 arcade title. Stripped-down and purposeful, this is as pure as racing games come: just a race car, the track, the clock, perhaps the best-feeling drifting in any game, and a series of wedge-shaped, primary-colored opponents drifting through the corners alongside you. It’s bliss.

Hamster’s excellent Arcade Archives series is all about slavish authenticity to the original coin-op. That means this release doesn’t have as many features as the famous port for the PlayStation; with just one playable car and one track, it’s definitely a purist approach. But it’s also beautiful in its primitive way, and incredibly smooth and crisp. A true classic as it was meant to be played.​​​ —OW

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Image: Ubisoft Quebec/Ubisoft

A major test for the Switch 2 will be whether it can run cutting-edge, current-gen AAA games. The answer, as far as Ubisoft is concerned anyway, is a resounding yes. Following an excellent port of Star Wars: Outlaws, the publisher has successfully squashed its latest giant open-world adventure onto the Nintendo handheld in less than nine months. Whilst there are a few visual cutbacks, and the game dips below 30 frames per second in busy areas, this port gets stunningly close to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions.

But what about the game itself? Without being a standout entry in the series, it’s more than competent: a lavishly appointed, solidly engineered and designed bit of historical tourism, taking in the gorgeous sights and violent political minefields of 16th-century Japan. The two protagonists — ninja Naoe and samurai Yasuke — have starkly different gameplay styles that pay off the game’s rather slow opening. If you’re after a full-scale epic for the Switch 2, look no further. —OW

Read Grant Stoner’s full review of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Cyberpunk 2077

Image: CD Prokekt Red

Big, open worlds like Cyberpunk 2077‘s are best explored at your own pace, which makes the Switch 2 version of CD Projekt Red’s urban RPG an ideal way to see the sights of Night City. And you should see those sights. The game’s central tale occasionally takes the gruff cynicism of its setting a bit too far, but under the grittiness is a sincere and even poignant take on what it means to live a worthwhile life against all odds, and on the dangers of letting Big Business amass too much influence. Much of that comes through in Cyberpunk 2077‘s excellent side quests and character stories, and despite how demanding the game is on hardware, it holds up brilliantly on the Switch 2.

Well, almost. Performance in Phantom Liberty is a bit dodgy, but the base game is stable with clear resolution. The Switch 2’s additional control options are a nice bonus as well. Motion controls work with surprising effectiveness and help mitigate the awkwardness of playing an FPS game with an analog stick, and if you want even more precision, you can use the Joy-Con 2’s mouse controls in tabletop or docked mode. —Josh Broadwell

Deltarune

Image: 8-4

Undertale‘s magic happens in the touching character moments and smaller stories amid Toby Fox’s bigger, often hamfisted tale about how getting along is better than hurting everyone. Deltarune, Undertale’s spiritual successor, leans heavily into the former and becomes a playground for ideas more than a traditional story. It’s so much better for it. Kris, Deltarune‘s protagonist, gets caught up in a supernatural plot involving Dark Worlds, distinct civilizations themed around specific real-world problems like obsessing over public image or refusing to acknowledge death and loss. It’s endlessly inventive, and it lets Deltarune explore a broader variety of emotions, storytelling styles, and methods of character development than its predecessor.

Charming as Toby Fox’s characters and quirky worlds are, the best thing about Deltarune is its clever battle system that adds a bespoke touch to Undertale‘s options of fighting or taking a pacifist route. You guide a little heart through torrents of enemy projectiles to keep the party from taking damage, but Fox also weaves elements of whatever’s happening in the story into most encounters — forcing you to work around an old man’s walking stick, for example, or changing the battle depending on whether you play along with a narcissistic TV host’s twisted quiz. Deltarune might not attract as much attention as something like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but it quietly has one of the best turn-based battle systems out there. —JB

Donkey Kong Bananza

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo

Oh, banana! Nintendo took the unorthodox step of holding back what many might regard as the system’s first must-have title until six weeks after launch. It’s not the only thing that’s unexpected about Donkey Kong Bananza. Many were anticipating a new 3D Mario game from the Super Mario Odyssey team, but instead they got a revival of the plumber’s original costar, the first Donkey Kong game developed in-house by Nintendo in 20 years.

In most other ways, Bananza is everything you expect of a platform game from Nintendo, the undisputed masters of the art. But, where Mario is all about precision, this version of Donkey Kong is all about delightfully messy brute force as he pummels his way through the scenery. It’s a tactile thrill of the game, initially on the easy side, but building to a spectacular conclusion over time. —OW

Read Josh Broadwell’s full review of Donkey Kong Bananza.

Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined

Square Enix’s remake of the 2001 PlayStation role-playing game deserves its subtitle: This is a surprisingly thorough reimagining, cutting and reordering passages to drastically hasten your way into what was a notoriously slow-going game. The character class system is reworked, and the visuals taken in a mildly controversial new direction with doll-like renditions of Akira Toriyama’s timeless character designs presented within lush, scaled-down dioramas.

Nevertheless, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is the perfect introduction to the Dragon Quest series — and to classical turn-based RPGs. Everything from the battle system to the storytelling is designed with crisp legibility and appealing simplicity that, over the course of the game, get substantially deeper and richer. And it couldn’t look better or fit more snugly on Switch 2, the perfect portable system for this summer holiday of a game. —OW

Read Michael McWhertor’s full review of Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

Image: Level-5 via Polygon

Level-5 might be best known outside Japan for its Professor Layton puzzle mysteries, but the studio is also a master of pleasurable grind and cute world-building, going all the way back to its PlayStation 2 RPGs like Dark Cloud. Fantasy Life i follows this tradition. It’s a sequel to a 2014 3DS game, and it combines RPG and life-sim mechanics in a way that’s almost impossible to put down.

It’s an adorable, cozy, and totally engrossing experience. There are over a dozen Lifes — swappable jobs, essentially — to burrow deep into, covering combat, crafting, and gathering. They’re simple but compellingly designed, with a limitless possibility for self-improvement. Cooking alone can become an all-consuming obsession in Fantasy Life i. Until we get a new Animal Crossing, this is the ultimate comfort-gaming experience on the Switch 2. —OW

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade

Even more strange and fascinating a remake project from Square Enix than Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a metatextual reorganization of one classic, epic RPG into three sprawling blockbusters. The first of these was originally released in 2020 on PlayStation 4, although technically the Switch 2 gets a port of 2021’s expanded PS5 version, Intergrade. (The second installment, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, will follow it in June 2023.)

Remake is a bizarre project masterminded by several members of the original development team, including Kingdom Hearts’ Tetsuya Nomura. It’s an unholy but delightful mashup of classic Final Fantasy, modern action game, and postmodern retcon. This first part isn’t the strongest, but it’s still a lavish and surprising experience, and the Switch 2 handles it surprisingly well. —OW

Fast Fusion

Image: Shin’en

Fast Fusion looks deceptively simple at first glance, like a legally distinct F-Zero game. You race streamlined, futuristic cars at impossible speeds — 400 mph is slow in Fast Fusion — across tracks that frequently defy gravity, and you use well-timed speed boosts to get ahead of your opponents. Where F-Zero has you recover boost power by driving over pit stops, Fast Fusion makes you work for it by collecting coins, and that’s what gives this game a strong identity of its own.

Most boost-recovering coins are floating above the course or pop up in otherwise hard-to-reach areas, so in addition to figuring out how best to handle sharp curves at 500 mph, you have to plan jumps and balance speed boosts with risky maneuvers to maintain your momentum as well. It’s exhilarating and strategic in equal measure, and the blend of sci-fi futurism with rich, natural settings looks absolutely gorgeous on the Switch 2. —JB