Will they, won’t they, why won’t they? It’s been a rollercoaster couple of days for Nintendo fans who have been waiting to hear confirmation or denial of a hotly rumored Nintendo Direct stream.
Rumored to be taking place on January 10, fans were waiting eagerly for Nintendo to make some kind of announcement. However, Nintendo simply decided to fan the flames and post the tweet embedded below.
pic.twitter.com/BkhTYDNnpYJanuary 10, 2018
We know. Cruel. However, it turns out the rumors weren’t entirely unfounded. Instead, the Direct appeared on January 11 with very little notice and brought with it a host of Nintendo Switch announcements.
Rather than a full Direct stream, this one ran at around 15 minutes but the information came fast and furious.
Dark Souls and Donkey Kong
One of the biggest announcements to come from the Direct is that Dark Souls is being remastered for the Nintendo Switch.
Coming May 25 on Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC, this will see the original Dark Souls game completely remastered. The trailer shown in the stream didn’t say much about what kinds of improvements we’ll see, but on Twitter it was confirmed that it'll have improved frame rate and resolution as well as DLC.
Continuing the trend of bringing more adult games to the Switch, it’s been revealed that PayDay 2 is coming to Switch on February 27. This violent heist game will allow Switch owners to play locally or online with up to three friends, completing a variety of missions.
That wasn’t all, of course. Before Dark Souls topped off the Direct, it was revealed that the Nintendo DS rhythm battle classic, The World Ends With You, will be coming to console 10 years after its original release. A final release date is yet to be confirmed, but when it’s released it’ll incorporate both touchscreen and Joy-Con controls.
Another classic title, Hyrule Warriors, is being released in an Ultimate version for the Switch this spring. This version of the game will take all the content from both the Wii U and 3DS versions of the game and bring it together.
It was confirmed that Mario will be returning to the tennis court in spring with Mario Tennis Aces. You’ve seen him in swim shorts and a poncho in Odyssey, now it’s tennis whites. There’s going to be a story mode and various tennis-based missions, which makes this a little different from the usual Mario Tennis offering.
Speaking of Mario, there’s a free update coming to Odyssey in February. It’ll bring a new online activity called Balloon World with two competitive modes: hide it and find it. Players will be able to hide balloons and find those hidden by others, scoring points for finding balloons fastest. Knowing every area of the game’s kingdoms will be key.
Even more excitingly, though, Donkey Kong is making his debut on Switch. He’ll first appear in a new DLC for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle in spring.
But then he’ll be getting his very own game, with a re-release of the excellent Wii U title Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on May 4. This is the same great game with an additional surf mode, and players will be able to play by themselves or locally with a friend in co-op mode.
And that’s all folks. It wasn’t an insight into the whole year, far from it, but it was a good sign that Nintendo is on the ball in 2018. If you want to watch the Direct for yourself, you can find it on the official Nintendo page.
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