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A lot has changed in video gaming since Switch launched in 2017. Beyond all Nintendo’s handheld hybrid switching, we now live in a world where a Nintendo game on mobile is a fairly normal occurrence and both Microsoft and Sony publish games on Nintendo’s console. Crazy.
As we await official word on the next generation of Nintendo hardware, it’s got us thinking back on the current cycle and the games that defined the era for Switch owners.
The following eight games — one for each year, though not one from each year — represent experiences that we feel define the Switch and this past generation in mostly (though not exclusively) positive ways.
These aren’t just the best games, remember, but games that we feel captured the zeitgeist on Switch somehow. Games that, when we look back in 10, 20, 30 years, will make us think of Nintendo’s first little handheld hybrid and the fun we had with it.
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way, a game that’s not a Switch exclusive but is undeniably a generation-definer.
Breath of the Wild transformed Zelda in a way you probably didn’t imagine possible having spent nearly two decades doing things in a fairly similar style. It proved once again that reinvention doesn’t mean ejecting the core of the series, but rather rediscovering and finding new ways to emphasise the core that was there from the beginning.
BOTW made us feel wonder and awe once more while exploring Hyrule.
Here representing the epic indies and sprawling Metroidvanias, Hollow Knight epitomises the indie explosion we’ve enjoyed on Nintendo’s platform.
Again, the seeds of this were germinating in the Wii U era, earlier even, but from Nintendo’s perspective, it’s the Switch era where independent developers have had the opportunity to flourish on an incredibly popular platform with a Nintendo that seems to finally understand their importance and the positive effect supporting smaller teams on your platform can have.
The eShop is a very different place now to the early days, and it’s easier than ever for great games to get lost, but games large and small from indie devs have played a huge part in the success of Switch, and the success of this game, in particular, has elevated its long-awaited sequel to meme-level status.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, most people reading this will have turned to video games to offer relief in trying times, and if there were a poster game for 2020-21 cosy comfort, this is it.
For Nintendo and anyone who took solace from this game, its March 2020 release timing was a happy accident. When we look back on the Switch in the decades to come, though, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will remain a defining memory of the system and the period. Talkshows were hosted in it, for goodness’ sake.
We debated for a good long time about including another influential life sim that means the world to millions of people, and for a time Stardew Valley was also on this list. Ultimately it was the closest of calls, but in the interest of variety, it gave way to make room for something else. Still, if there were a ninth entry here, it’d be Stardew.
An impressive roster, there! We tried to work in as many genres as possible given our self-imposed limit, but you know we like a list and our exhaustive genre best ofs and Top 50 Switch games will showcase many of your favourites missing above, and highlight even further the breadth of this console’s library.
Let us know below if there are any gen-defining winners you’d swap in! ‘Everyone is here’ Smash Bros., perhaps? What about a VN? Does the zaniness of LABO‘s cardboard earn a spot on your list? Undertale? One of the other many incredible role-playing games which made Switch an RPG machine? Is Minecraft forever your cross-gen monster? Do you know how many Xenoblades are on Switch?!?
As the industry at large continues to struggle with dramatic changes wrought by the pandemic and layoffs across the board, with fantastic developers having to shield themselves from the spurting snake oil of Web 3.0 and NFTs and AI on top of everything else, it’s easy to look back and focus on the bad. For anybody playing games in the last eight years, though — especially on Switch — it’s been an incredibly rich and varied generation.
Here’s to the next, whenever it may come!
