Hands-On with Nintendo's Gamescom 2026 Booth!

This is a call to all my friends - there are going to be countless evenings of Switch Sports Resort here.

Early access to games was provided to us by Nintendo, thank you very much!

No game announced for the Switch 2 recently has grabbed my attention quite like Switch Sports Resort. The game, which includes 12 different sports from Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, looks like a brand new version of my entire childhood, and I've just been waiting to check if it's good enough to know whether I can call friends over for an evening of pure fun. Most of our time at the booth was spent on it - but we also saw a few other games worth talking about. And yes, The Witcher 3 Remastered too.

Let's start with that one. The Remastered version looks and runs better on the Switch 2 than the original version of the game on the current console generation, and the achievement doesn't stop there. The lighting is fantastic, the movement is excellent, the combat has genuinely been upgraded, and the face models look completely modern - this might even be a peak for the Switch 2. The game will arrive on the console alongside its upgrade for other consoles on September 29th.

The second game we played was Orbitals - but it was only half a level, so I'm being very careful with my statements about it. For now, it really looks and plays excellent and unique - truly nothing else reminds me of it. It's much more versatile than It Takes Two or Split Fiction, and each of the characters can choose more freely which gadget they want this time or what they're doing. I, for instance, explored the spaceship while whoever played with me went to try putting out fires, and when we reconnected we constantly switched between weapons so we could do everything. The animation is where the game really goes wild. It's so stunning - and in a way that's genuinely unclear to me, it also moves excellently and doesn't feel slow or stuck. The game has me intrigued on so many levels, and how exciting that we'll be able to play it as soon as September 3rd.

And for the main course - Switch Sports Resort. The game really takes the island from the iconic Wii Sports Resort and adds a few more things to it, in tons of ways. Meaning, it's not just that there's a new area on the island or an extra court to play volleyball or something - it has tons of new features that didn't exist in the Wii. The ability to customize your character, for example, is built in a way that doesn't feel oppressive, but does feel broad enough for you to build them a great personality. The sports that existed haven't undergone major changes - though I was disappointed that you can no longer hit endlessly in tennis in the funny way you could go crazy with the rackets in the original Wii. Basketball was completely my highlight from Wii Sports Resort, and I was thrilled to discover that my muscles have perfect memory of how to shoot threes. Well, not perfect - but still just as delightful as I remembered. I have no doubt this is going to be a hit, and I have no doubt that loads and loads of people are about to organize friend evenings with all the sports types available here. Maybe except thumb wars..

Switch Sports Resort comes out on October 22nd, and for now it's Nintendo's last game for the coming year. Will we really see Zelda come out shortly after? We really don't know, but we do know that with everything we played, Switch 2 players have very packed months of good things even without it.