The long-awaited first Nintendo Direct of 2019 hit today, and as expected, it was packed full of news sure to please Switch owners looking for more Fire Emblem, Mario, and even Zelda. Here’s everything we learned. Advertisement Super Mario Maker 2 is coming to Switch—with slopes!—in June 2019. Freaking finally. We can now create our own Mario courses on the Switch, and Mario can finally slide on his denim-covered ass down diagonal slopes. Nintendo didn’t show off any especially wild new features for the Switch version of this Wii U game, but we did see Cat Mario, too. “Many new elements” were promised. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is getting remade for Switch. An adorable-looking, 3D, top-down remake of the 1993 black and white Game Boy game is heading to Switch this year. We didn’t get many details about it, but the trailer confirmed that you can still stomp on old-school style Goombas in the side-scrolling bits. There was also a gorgeous 2D animated intro. Fire Emblem: Three Houses is slightly delayed, to July 26. Nintendo detailed a lot of the game’s lore, including what the deal is with the titular Houses. Looks like the characters are all students, and they level up and grow through a combination of fighting and book-learnin’ at school. There will be a special edition, of course. Advertisement Astral Chain, a new game from Platinum Games, will be out on August 30 . It’s an action game in which you play future cops and fight giant monsters. Seems like it’ll have co-op. Masakazu Katsura, the manga artist known for Video Girl Ai, is on character designs, and Platinum’s Hideki Kamiya and Takahisa Taura are on the development staff. Advertisement The BoxBoy series is coming to Switch, with 2-player co-op. Time to get really mad at your friend as you play through 270 different stages in BoxBoy! + BoxGirl! on April 26. There will also be stages in which you play as Qudy, who is twice the height of BoxBoy. Advertisement Dragon Quest XI will hit Switch this fall. The Switch version of Square Enix’s latest RPG will be titled Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes Of An Elusive Age: Definitive Edition, include both English and Japanese audio, and will also have new storylines for various characters. It’ll even feature the 16-bit style graphical mode from the 3DS version that didn’t leave Japan. Nintendo promised more new information on the Switch version in the future. Advertisement Lots of stuff is dropping to the eShop today. First, there’s Tetris 99. It’s an exclusive for Switch Online. If you’re a member you can play this battle-royale Tetris game, in which 99 players start but only one remains, for free starting today. Advertisement Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker for Switch will get a free update today that adds 2-player co-op to each of the game’s courses. There will also be 18 new challenges and five new courses via paid DLC, starting today. You can order the package, called “Special Episode,” now and get the first course, with the rest delivered on March 14. A digital bundle will hit eShop today containing the whole game and DLC access. Advertisement Daemon X Machina, the mecha combat game shown at E3, will get a “prototype missions” demo today, with the full game coming this summer. The game is still in development, so developers are looking for feedback. Play the demo and you might get a survey looking for your thoughts. Yoshi’s Crafted World, coming March 29, will have a demo today. It will include adorable “costumes” that are just Yoshi wearing a cardboard box. Advertisement Final Fantasy IX will also come to the eShop today, with Final Fantasy VII close behind on March 26. No word on the other Final Fantasies that are being ported to Switch. Other new game or content announcements, including... Disney Tsum Tsum Festival is coming from Bandai Namco. Many different four-player mini-games, playable locally and online. You can also play what looks like a straight-up port of the mobile version of the game. Advertisement Oninaki is the new action RPG from the developers of I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphear. The character must jump back and forth between “the living world and beyond” to find “lost souls” to rescue, who give you new powers. It’s coming this summer. Advertisement Rune Factory 4 Special has been remastered for the Switch, coming later this year. Rune Factory 5 is also in development. Starlink: Battle For Atlas is getting more Star Fox-related content in its Spring update. You’ll be able to play as Falco, Peppy, and Slippy and take on the members of Star Wolf in the new battles in April. Advertisement Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will get a Version 3.0 update this spring. No details on what it’ll include. The DLC character Joker from Persona is coming in April. And a whole bunch of other release dates and announcements for Switch, including: Advertisement Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (Summer), Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night (Summer), Dragon Quest Builders 2 (July 12), Dead By Daylight (Fall), Deltarune (February 28), GRID Autosport (Summer), Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Spring), Mortal Kombat 11 (April 23), Unravel two (March 22), Assassin’s Creed III Remastered (May 21), and Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon Every Buddy (March 20). Oh, and the developers of Bayonetta 3 are reportedly “hard at work.” Glad to hear it.<doc-sep>Although the latest Nintendo Direct was filled with big news, upcoming Switch game Fire Emblem: Three Houses was the centerpiece, with an extended trailer showing off tons of narrative details about the upcoming game. We also saw combat in action and learned more about how characters will form bonds. In Three Houses, three ruling powers share the land in relative harmony. You--either a male or female character--are a mercenary under your father Jeralt's command, and you receive an offer to teach at the Officer's Academy. The Academy is composed of the titular three houses--the Black Eagles, Blue Lions, or Golden Deer--and train them in particular skills to help you in battle. You're in charge of building a lesson plan of sorts that will help them learn and grow. Your students can also interact and form bonds at the academy, which will influence their actions on the battlefield. Gallery Here's how a Nintendo press release sums things up: "The Black Eagles. The Blue Lions. The Golden Deer. Three noble houses that are part of the Officer's Academy, an elite facility that trains students in the ways of weapons, magic and special skills. As a professor, the player must choose one of these houses to lead its students in grid-based battles with life-or-death stakes. Each house is comprised of many different students to meet and train, each with her or his own personality and skills. These students can interact with each other at the academy, strengthening their bonds and supporting each other on the battlefield." Fire Emblem: Three Houses was originally scheduled for launch this spring but will now release for Nintendo Switch on July 26. The presentation also included a rundown of the game's special edition. In other Nintendo Direct news, the company began the presentation with the announcement of Super Mario Maker 2 for Switch, as well as a Zelda: Link's Awakening remake.<doc-sep>
The first Nintendo Direct presentation of 2019, which came more than three months after the previous show, was chock full of announcements and details regarding Nintendo’s slate of Nintendo Switch games for this year. Let’s take a deeper look at six highlights — with the list of all the news following below. Super Mario Maker getting a sequel for Switch, not a port Nintendo isn’t porting the beloved Wii U game Super Mario Maker to the Switch. Instead, the company is working on a brand-new follow-up, Super Mario Maker 2. There weren’t any real details, except that the sequel will offer “a host of new tools and features,” including the ability to put slopes in created levels. Super Mario Maker 2 is set for release this June. Zelda: Link’s Awakening revived for Switch The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening debuted on Game Boy way back in 1993, and Nintendo is bringing it back 26 years later, in 2019, on the Switch. Expect details later, but the gameplay footage — the same top-down perspective, but with 3D graphics instead of 2D sprites — looks gorgeous. PlatinumGames’ Astral Chain coming to Switch this summer The next project from Japanese studio PlatinumGames is called Astral Chain, and it’s scheduled to be released Aug. 30 exclusively on Nintendo Switch. Platinum’s Hideki Kamiya is involved in the title, which Nintendo describes as a “synergetic action game.” Tetris 99 gets surprise announcement, release Following hot on the heels of last fall’s Tetris Effect comes Tetris 99, a Switch-exclusive spin on the Russian classic that puts 99 players into tetromino combat against each other. (Yes, it’s basically Tetris battle royale.) Tetris 99 will be available today in the Switch eShop as a free-to-download game for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. Fire Emblem: Three Houses arrives in July Nintendo provided some new information on the Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the headlining game of Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct presentation and the series’ debut on Switch. Most importantly, we now have a release date: July 26, which is well after the previously scheduled release window of spring 2019. BoxBoy! debuting on Switch The BoxBoy! series of puzzle platformers apparently didn’t end with its Nintendo 3DS trilogy, which concluded with Bye-Bye BoxBoy! in 2017. The franchise is transitioning to Switch with BoxBoy! + BoxGirl!, which will be released April 26 on the Switch eShop. As you might have gathered from the title, the game will offers two-player co-op in certain stages.