Nintendo says more than 60 indie games will be out for their new console by year’s end. Today, they blasted out a list of 17 of them and showed a lot more logos. Some were already announced. Regardless, there’s some cool stuff here. Like what you see?
Keep in mind that this was a Nintendo of America announcement, so these release dates may not apply to Australia. Nevertheless, it’s a good look at the Switch’s growing catalogue.
Runner3 from Choice Provisions: Runner3 continues the joyous adventures of CommanderVideo from BIT.TRIP RUNNER and Runner2. Players will encounter quests, branching paths, item shops, new Retro Challenges, new character moves, new dance moves and a roster of characters that somehow manages to rival the strangeness of Runner2. The game is scheduled to launch exclusively for Nintendo Switch this fall.
SteamWorld Dig 2 from Image & Form Games: In the sequel to the award-winning original, you must dig deep, gain riches and explore an underworld riddled with danger. The game is scheduled to launch this summer.
Yooka Laylee from Team 17 and Playtonic Games: Explore huge, beautiful worlds, meet an unforgettable cast of characters and horde a vault-load of shiny collectibles as buddy-duo Yooka (the green one) and Laylee (the wisecracking bat with the big nose). The buddy-duo platformer is coming to Nintendo Switch soon, with multiplayer functionality perfect for the system.
Blaster Master Zero from Inti Creates: The same elements that made the original Blaster Master a hit are back, including side-scrolling vehicular combat, top-down adventuring and a huge sci-fi landscape, in addition to a host of new and improved gameplay systems. The game includes a two-player mode and will have numerous character cameos coming soon. Blaster Master Zero launches exclusively on both Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS family systems on March 9.
Pocket Rumble from Chucklefish Games and Cardboard Robot Games: This deep 2D fighter makes players want to throw down, anywhere, anytime. The battles get even more intense with the inclusion of HD rumble: When players get hit by a weak attack, it will feel very different from getting rocked by a strong one. The game is scheduled to launch as a console exclusive for Nintendo Switch in March.
Flipping Death from Zoink Games: Welcome to Flatwood Peaks, a small whimsical town with a problem — Death is on vacation. Play as Penny and help the ghosts with their peculiar problems on The Otherside. This puzzling adventure game is scheduled to come to Nintendo Switch later this year.
Mr. Shifty from tinyBuild and Team Shifty: Shift through bullets, and master lightning-fast takedowns in a new kind of action game. Mr. Shifty follows a teleportation-fuelled heist to break into the world’s most secure facility. Shift through walls, through bullets, cover huge distances and be everywhere at once. One shot kills. Survive on skills. HD rumble allows players to feel every punch, shot and crash. The game is scheduled to launch first on Nintendo Switch this April.
Wargroove from Chucklefish Games: This turn-based strategy game offers local and online matches for one to four players. The game is scheduled to launch later this year.
Stardew Valley from Chucklefish Games and ConcernedApe: Nintendo Switch will be the first console to support the game’s new multiplayer feature. The open-ended, country-life RPG is scheduled to launch this summer.
Shakedown Hawaii from vBlank: This 16-bit spiritual successor to Retro City Rampage aims to be twice as good with twice the bits. From the boardroom to the streets, Shakedown Hawaii parodies big business and the white collar crimes that go alongside. Build your empire, monopolize the markets and collaterally re-zone the island’s destructible sandbox. It’s scheduled to launch first on Nintendo Switch this April.
Graceful Explosion Machine from Vertex Pop: Skillfully pilot the advanced Graceful Explosion Machine (GEM) fighter while blasting swarms of crystalline enemies with your ludicrously overpowered quad-weapon array. This side-scrolling arcade shooter features HD rumble support, which means players will really be able to feel those machines explode. The game is scheduled to launch first on Nintendo Switch this April.
Tumbleseed from aeiowu: A small seed heads up a mountain to save his home in this physics-based game. More than 30 unique upgrades help the seed overcome challenges and enemies. HD rumble means players will feel seeds traversing across the screen. The game is scheduled to launch on Nintendo Switch this spring.
Overcooked: Special Edition from Team 17 and Ghost Town Games: In Overcooked, players must journey through a variety of cruel and unusual kitchens on their quest to become master chefs capable of conquering an ancient edible evil which plagues the land. Play solo or engage in classic, chaotic couch co-op for up to four players in both co-operative and competitive challenge modes. The special edition features the original game, plus all of the DLC. HD rumble integration means they can feel every chop through a tomato and the slosh of soup in a pot. Overcooked: Special Edition is coming later this year.
The Escapists 2 from Team 17 and Mouldy Toof: The sequel to the hugely popular prison escape series supports drop-in/drop-out co-op for up to four players (additional accessories are required for multiplayer modes, and are sold separately). Players can tie together knotted sheets and use them to climb down high windows in new multi-level prisons, and find other new ways to make a break for freedom. The Escapists 2 is coming later this year.
GoNNER from Raw Fury and Art in Heart: GoNNER is a tough-as-hell, score-based, procedurally generated platformer with roguelike elements. GoNNER is also a story about friendship between Ikk, Death and a space whale named Sally. You will die. A lot. The console version of the game launches first on Nintendo Switch with additional content tailor-made for the system later this year.
Kingdom: Two Crowns from Raw Fury and Noio: In Kingdom: Two Crowns, attend to your domain, border to border, or venture into the wild to discover its wonders and threats. First revealed today, two players can come together in co-op mode to rule a kingdom. Their choices bring hope or despair to their subjects. The game is scheduled to launch later this year.
Dandara from Raw Fury and Long Hat House: Dandara has awoken to reshape the world. In this strange world of quirky characters, nothing is at it seems. In this bizarre, gravity-bending world with hidden beauty, it’s up to Dandara, jumping from surface to surface, to restore order and direct a directionless world. The game is scheduled to launch on Nintendo Switch this summer with exclusive features and functionality, including HD rumble support.
AU Editor’s Note: The list above also doesn’t include confirmed titles like Ultimate Chicken Horse, the third Jackbox Party Pack or Puyo Puyo Tetris. We’ll have a full list later this week.
It wasn’t that many years ago that Nintendo seemed to have little time for indie game developers, but on the Wii and then even more so on 3DS and Wii U, the company has started working with more indie developers. Nintendo has made a point of using the annual Game Developers Conference, which is running this week in San Francisco, to highlight the indie games coming to its hardware.
The Switch, which launches on March 3, has 32GB of on-board storage. That will fill up quickly, even with relatively small indie titles. Games can also be downloaded to SD cards, which are sold separately.
Add these indies to the list of big-publisher Switch releases, which you can find right here.
Comments
30 responses to “Nintendo Switch Is Getting A Ton Of Cool Indie Games”
Hard to work with them before the Wii, there was no online marketplace.
Totally excited for some of these, will pick a few up once BOTW stops dominating!
No bow is too long to draw when there’s fanboys to rile up.
LOL, having lots of indies really helped the Vita…
Get some AAA games Nintendo or prepare for another commercial failure.
The Vita was dead in the water by the time Sony pulled their fingers out and started trying to support indies
I don’t necessarily disagree, but indies ain’t going to ignite sales of the Switch. The only thing that will do that are must-have exclusives, namely marquee Nintendo titles and stuff like MonHun and other big 3rd party exclusives. Having indie titles will barely stop existing owners from trading in their Switches, if that.
Oh, I totally agree there. I do, however, think Ninty will have a healthy amount of first party titles coming out. Their new CEO seems to be pretty business savvy, they’ve been making a lot of right choices since he took over. Was just saying, I had my Vita for a long time before it became worth owning
Yeah I doubt it’s going to ignite buyers.
But it’s obvious that small, quick play games appeal to the mobile nature of the switch.
While AAA games are going to be a big focus, getting this part out of the way and in to the mythos is smart in its own way.
The vita had no first party support, the only good Sony game was gravity rush!
The switch is launching with one hell of a AAA game in zelda, and is getting splatoon, mk, and a free-roam 3d Mario this year. They are all major, major AAA games, well beyond anything rhe vita saw in its lifetime.
Vita had plenty of good first- and third-party games (depending on your taste).
As for the Nintendo line-up, we’ll see. If Nintendo is treating this as a soft launch, with end-of-year to be be considered the true launch, then yeah, having all those titles will be great. In the meantime, expect a burst of sales which will dry up significantly within a month or two.
Why are we comparing Switch to the Vita? One is the latest console by Nintendo and another was sad attempt from Sony to go into handheld gaming.
PS4 and Xbox One was filled with shit tons of indies too. The first 2 years was literally called the remaster/indie machine.
Which is why we are comparing Switch with Vita. Filling the Switch with indies to make up for poor support from big first- and third-party software is exactly what happened to Vita.
That wasn’t what I was saying at all. I know you are against the Switch from the very beginning but your points doesn’t make sense because
1)PS4/X1 had the same issue on launch
2)Vita wasn’t an indie machine until 2-3 years into the cycle because AAA abandoned it
3)Switch is getting AAA + indie on launch window, unlike Vita that didn’t actually get any proper AAA (maybe borderlands).
4)Switch is ultimately a console, not a handheld.
1. PS4/XBone had a shit-ton of big first- and third-party games at launch;
2. The timing isn’t the issue – the indies failed to significantly move the needle on sales. The general comments were “Nice to have them, but wouldn’t make me buy a Vita”. Same here with Switch;
3. As an aside, Vita had Assassin’s Creed, FIFA, Batman, Borderlands, Call of Duty, Resistance, Killzone, Uncharted, all of which had AAA (more or less) production values with a lower resolution and some handheld-specific controls.
Now I haven’t seen any launch window AAA games for Switch except Zelda (Skylanders? Just Dance?), although we can probably include Mario, NBA2K, Skyrim and FIFA (when they come out) later this year.
4. If Nintendo is trying to sell the Switch as a console, not a handheld, I’m the Queen of Egypt. It’s a hybrid. It’s marketed as a hybrid. Nintendo ultimately wants to do away with the division between consoles and handhelds. Its gaming division has already been amalgamated. Going forward, you’ll see the 3DS phased out and all future handheld games appearing on the Switch instead.
Okay Queen of Egypt.
Will all depend on pricing for mine – knowing that I’ll have to factor in the SD cost also. Bit disappointed in the internal memory aspect but it is what it is.
I’m usually not a huge digital copy procurer as I like seeing my physical library grow but the non region lock angle may force me to break that tradition.
The vast majority of these games are tiny when compared to something like zelda, so if you buy your big titles physically the internal storage should go pretty far for indie stuff.
Shovel knight was about 200mb on the wii u. Fast racing neo was 550. Stardew Valley is 350 on pc. Gungeon is 300. 26gigs is going to go pretty far!
I have so many things to buy! Loads of these are games I’d prefer on a handheld but haven’t had the opportunity yet. The switch is perfect for replicating that GBA-era feeling that so many indie games give off.
Snake pass looks like the best parts of classic Rare put together in a new way. It has a viva pinata aesthetic, a banjo kazooie world, music by David wise, and that snake looks happy as hell!
I’m pretty hype for shovel knight, Isaac, gungeon, redout, flipping death, steamworld 2, and yooka laylee too!
But yeah, zelda is gonna dominate my first month.
There’s a couple things to chew on here.
The term ‘indie’ means bugger all nowadays when it’s used to describe stuff that Ubisoft and EA clearly have a hand in publishing.
Steam’s a crushing weight on any new independent developer until they either get the coverage from games media they need, and then they can maybe break even.
Nintendo itself would do well to position itself as a middle-ground and advertise the fact that teams looking for exposure have the benefit of working in a walled garden, but still one that guarantees support as well.
Rocket League was released as a PS Plus freebie. That is enough for some to consider it to be indie.
Hell, can I be cheeky and call Pokemon an indie game?
Ungh, I SO want rocket league on the switch!
If they could copy the multiplayer support options of splatoon 2, it would be utterly epic multiplayer fun!
Won’t happen.
It’s (as in, the team, the franchise, the whole thing) too far in one direction, it’s like saying a popular MMO should up stumps and start immediately investing in Switch.
Rocket League’s a platform in and of itself, like Minecraft or Destiny or WoW.
Games as a service and all that.
Nintendo, and by extension, the Switch, continues to thumb its nose at that philosophy.
Did you conveniently forget Splatoon?
That had the same constantly updating schedule, with free weapons and maps added regularly, and timed events with Splatfests, which is exactly the “Games as a platform/service” design you are talking about, and from a First Party game as well.
I think Nintendo is well aware of this design and can support it. i assume Splatoon 2 will follow in its footsteps, and i’d put a bet on Arms probably doing something similar.
Splatoon’s great. I love that game and can safely say we still won’t see Rocket League on Switch any time soon.
Really looking forward to Advanced..Wargroove
Also Stardew Valley multiplayer
Worth noting, the launch version of Stardew Valley won’t have multiplayer, it’ll be added later, after it’s added to the PC version first. Unfortunate, but at least it’s coming eventually.
source on that?
From the correction at the top of this article: http://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-multiplayer-could-be-coming-to-pc-this-summer/
Oh, well that’s disappointing.
I think the one indie game I’m looking forward to getting on Nintendo Switch is Yooka Laylee from the creators that bought us Banjo Kazooie. Playtonic Games I’m looking forward to hearing back from you about when Yooka Laylee will be released for the Nintendo Switch in 2017.
This is pleasant. I can see a number of these working better on a handheld device than a home console or PC.
Definitely. The two Wonder Boy games will be awesome on the Switch. Mr Shifty is fantastic already, and one that’s going to get a lot of play in portable mode for me.
Ooh Stardew Valley multiplayer yes please.