What The Hell America!

The Nintendo Switch 2 launches June 5, and costs a lofty $449.

The price announcement came hours before President Trump declared sweeping tariffs on all imports to the United States. It didn’t take long for gamers to blame the ballooning prices on the administration’s ongoing trade war.

The $449 tag approaches the price of a new PlayStation 5, but the Nintendo Switch 2 is at least narrowing the power gap. Its graphical and computational abilities far outstrip the original Switch, allowing Nintendo to pursue grander ambitions. I got to play a cornucopia of games coming to the console at a press event in New York City — from new Nintendo titles like Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond to third-party juggernauts like Cyberpunk 2077 and Civilization 7.

Around the world

After an appearance from Nintendo of America CEO Doug Bowser (yes, he shares a name with Mario’s archenemy), my media group was ushered to play the star of the show: Mario Kart World, which comes out the same day as the Nintendo Switch 2. I thought I’d seen about as far as the franchise could go with the superb Mario Kart 8. But World, as the moniker suggests, breaks with tradition and resembles open-world racing games like the Forza Horizon series.

Up to 24 players can race against each other in Mario Kart World.

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While you can play the usual Grand Prix races, all competitions take place in a vast interconnected landscape, ranging from snowy peaks to sandy beaches to more whimsical courses like giant black-and-white film reels. I cruised around as Waluigi in a mariachi outfit, waiting for a “Knockout Tour” I’d been signed up for to start. Once 24 players had queued, we teleported to one side of the map and raced clear to the other side. The mode winnowed down players at various checkpoints (like Fall Guys) — only the top 20 kept racing after the first leg, then only the top 16, and so on, until the final course sported only four racers. I barely lost it all and claimed a respectable second place.

While the core racing feels similar to Mario Kart 8, the courses aren’t nearly so recursive or complex. Wide roads accommodate much bigger crowds and item distribution feels broader. I drew a greater variety of power-ups than I’ve seen in most Mario Kart games — from the familiar mushrooms and shells to feathers that made me jump and power blocks that spurted out coins.

Mario Kart 8 sold nearly 70 million copies on the original Nintendo Switch — it’s one of the biggest games ever and was key to that console’s success. Nintendo’s clearly banking on Mario Kart World selling the Switch 2. From what I’ve played, that feels like a safe bet.

Donkey Kong punches his way through the new game he stars in, Bananza.

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Nintendo’s next big release is the gleefully destructive Donkey Kong Bananza. Out in July, you play the titular ape as he smashes through another open world, searching for crystalline bananas and golden treasure. You can punch just about everything to smithereens. Carve out tunnels and discover whole cave systems teeming with treasure. Once you’ve hit rock bottom, simply scale your way back up — Donkey Kong’s powerful forearms can take you nearly anywhere. Gonzo and anarchic, Bananza was by far the buzziest game of the day — everyone I spoke to gushed with stories of discovery and surprise.

Mice to meet you 

Then there’s Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which has yet to receive a more specific release date than “2025.” Fans have waited on this game for decades, and the new entry looks absolutely gorgeous on the Switch 2’s updated graphics. It also sports a new control mode that I’m not exactly a fan of.

Samus targets an enemy in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.

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One of the Switch 2’s other innovations is detachable Joy-Cons that can double as computer mice. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond invited me to place the right Joy-Con on a flat surface, which I could swivel and push to point Samus’ beam gun most accurately. I didn’t mind this method, but my attempts to swap between the mouse mode and more traditional controls frustrated me. Theoretically, the game detects how you’re holding the controller and responds accordingly — but when I gripped it normally, it glitched, apparently reading my fingers as another surface for its mouse sensor to roll over.

Drag x Drive used this mode in a more innovative way. Resembling Wheelchair Basketball, you use both Joy-Cons as mice to spin your wheels, ram opponents, and eventually, shoot hoops. The game even encouraged me to slide the Joy-Cons over my legs instead of a desktop — and it works decently well that way, too.

Push Joy-Cons against a flat surface to steer your wheelchair in Drag x Drive.

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But of course, Joy-Con mice feel most natural when used to simply point cursors. I played Civilization 7 on the Switch 2, much like on my home desktop. The game’s executive producer, Dennis Shirk, told me that it will launch with deep and customizable buttons to make it easy to play entirely one-handed. He hopes that the Switch 2 will lead to niche PC games finding a home in the console market. “Strategy games are just easier played with the mouse,” says Shirk, “If this opens the door to that, especially for indie developers that don’t necessarily have budgets or teams to do multiple control sets, I am all for it.”

“All Together, Anytime, and Anywhere”

Nintendo’s also going all-in on social interaction. At the press of a “C-button,” players can video conference friends mid-game. When paired with a $50 camera, these “GameChats” can layer real-time footage of players onto gameplay. The camera can even enable new game styles. I tried this out in an “upgraded” version of Super Mario Party Jamboree, which added a new “Jamboree TV” mode where I had to physically bow, wave, and shout to appease an emcee, Bowser.

Super Mario Party Jamboree– Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV uses the camera accessory for new minigames.

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All in all, Nintendo’s developers stressed that the Switch 2 is just as much the evolution to familiar hardware that the name implies. It’s largely backwards compatible with the original Switch, and shares much of its design philosophy. That might disappoint fans who wanted Nintendo to take bigger, bolder swings. But the company desperately wants to avoid a Wii U flop — a console that sported a novel new controller but failed to convince consumers to upgrade from the celebrated Wii. The Switch 2 announces itself immediately as a bigger, better sequel. For many, $449 might be an unjustifiable luxury, but for the Nintendo faithful, these incremental improvements add up to something quite promising indeed.