A third-party Direct means there’s no news on games like Splatoon Raiders or Metroid Prime 4, but that doesn’t make the showcase bad
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With a record-breaking new console and Donkey Kong’s hot critical reception, the bar for a new Nintendo Direct was bound to be high. But the vibes were off the moment that Nintendo revealed that its games showcase was going to be focused on third-party games. Now that the world got to see what’s coming next from third-party developers on the Switch 2, fan reaction hasn’t gotten much better – in some places, it’s downright vitriolic.
Some disappointment is to be expected. You can’t blame people for being interested in hearing about the next Zelda or Mario game, only to be told that the major reason anyone purchases a Nintendo console – Nintendo games – weren’t going to be shown during the July 31 Direct.
“Why are people upset games will be announced tomorrow?” reads a top-voted thread posted a day before the Direct on the Nintendo 2 Switch subreddit, which appends a meme making fun of that sentiment.
A day later, everyone’s gotten the chance to see the 27-minute partner showcase and the pervasive sentiment, at least for the type of fan who would write a comment online, is wildly negative. Right now, nearly every new popular thread on the Switch 2 subreddit is expressing disappointment with what they saw in the Direct, or having discourse over whether or not it was a worthwhile showcase.
“Nintendo Direct Was Trash,” reads the title of the biggest thread on the topic. “My heart sank when they spent more than a minute on a fucking campfire simulator,” a top comment on that thread chimed in.
The game in question is Chillin’ by the Fire, a cozy game about hanging out with your friends. In it, you can use the Nintendo Switch 2’s camera to sit around a crackling flame. It’s a neat concept, and one that follows in the recent trend of friend-focused games that are blowing up. But because the game depicts this footage as giant floating heads, the intentionally goofy visuals have become a shorthand for the quality of the Direct itself. “What kind of bullshit was this???” reads another top thread in total disbelief. “I got up at 6am on my day off for a rat game and a campfire simulator?” one thread echoes.
“Well this was underwhelming,” reads another title where the user went in with a bingo card of potential announcements, only to walk away with nearly everything crossed out.
This is but a small selection of the discourse happening on the console-focused community, which is admittedly on the smaller end as far as Reddit subsections go. But even in bigger areas, like the Switch community with 7.9 million followers, sentiment isn’t all that much more positive. “Honestly a bit embarrassing from them,” reads one top comment on a Direct thread in that subreddit. “No idea why they thought it was a good idea to showcase such an underwhelming direct?”
Obviously, the type of person who would post on Reddit is hardly representative of the millions of people who own either Switch consoles, both of which are mainstream products. But negative online discussions about the Direct span well beyond Reddit, as evidenced by the top comments on places like the actual Direct YouTube livestream.
“My Wallet is very happy with me after watching that direct,” one top commenter says, implying that they won’t be buying much that was shown. “Nintendo really hyped us up with ‘we have two games left to show’ and showed octopath traveler and its son,” states the most upvoted comment on YouTube. “Pro Tip: Never go into a direct expecting to see the games you want,” another user says. “Fast forward is such a time saver,” declares a popular comment.
Undoubtedly, there are plenty of people who are chuffed with what today’s Nintendo Direct unveiled. You’ve got the first new Katamari Damacy game in 14 years, a new Zelda spinoff that Nintendo hardware can actually handle now, and Persona 3 Reloaded was meant to be played on a portable like Switch. Between wide aperture games like EA Sports FC 26 and Apex Legends, the showcase cast a wide audience net. I’ve yet to see a Direct that wasn’t met with disapproval, even if the outcry was minimal compared to what’s happening today.
Though the reactions might sound outrageous, many of these responses are coming from a real place. Many of the games included in the Direct were straightforward ports, and with some exceptions, there doesn’t seem to be a ton of appetite for those based on sales data from games already on the market. Some of these re-releases won’t be available for months as well.
And while the Switch 2 does have some must-play games, it’s only been out for less than two months – so the options are slim even if they’re high quality. Early adopters are champing at the bit for more good games.
Then you’ve got the wider Switch 2 lineup, which is sparse when it comes to confirmed games. We know Nintendo is working on games like Metroid Prime 4, and there are exclusives like The Duskbloods to look forward to, but without a release date, it all feels amorphous. In terms of confirmed titles, there are games like Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star Crossed World. But one of these is a spinoff, and the other is an enhanced re-release. The games will probably be fine, possibly even great, but people would probably feel more excitement to see more of a mainline Pokemon or Kirby game.
To Nintendo’s credit, part of this reaction stems from the fact that the Japanese company has successfully grown its marketing into a full-blown event that’s spawned a culture of its own. The disappointment is proportional to the high esteem Nintendo Directs have. Just because we didn’t get to see the next big Mario game doesn’t mean Nintendo isn’t working on it. But games of that caliber either get tucked into major Direct streams focused on Nintendo games, or they get dedicated Directs of their own. Dividing the Directs like these ensures that smaller games get a chance to market themselves without being outshined by series that have had decades to amass a fanbase.
The Switch 2’s lineup might feel precarious on paper, sure. That’s typical in the first year of a new console, when studios are still in the process of acquiring dev kits, and others are still trying to figure out best practices for new hardware. Dates that are in the air will be set eventually, and some of those games have a 2025 window.
And if Nintendo’s proven anything, it’s that you should never underestimate it or the games that get published on Switch. When the Japanese company initially revealed that the Switch 2’s first big-ticket item post launch would be Donkey Kong Bananza, the idea probably sounded preposterous. Donkey Kong’s got a solid reputation as a platformer, but the gorilla would never be considered as a modern system seller compared to franchises like, say, Super Smash Bros. Some people might’ve even bought the game simply because, this early on, there aren’t many options for exclusive Switch 2 games. But not long after release, everyone understood why Nintendo was putting so many resources into pushing its furry platformer: Donkey Kong Bananza is a fantastic game that will likely be looked back on as a high point for the company.
Who’s to say that the same thing couldn’t happen to any of the games in the July Direct? A month from now, the campfire game might prove everyone wrong and end up being the reason some people go on to buy a Switch 2 camera.
“I find it wild that people will unironically call extremely high quality games slop just because they aren’t a fan of the genre,” reads a more reasonable take on the Direct livestream.
