Nintendo is playing things too safe

Tuesday’s Nintendo Direct showcase felt like an important moment for the company. With the Switch 2 heading into its second holiday season, one in which the hardware will be even more expensive thanks to a price hike, it was a chance for Nintendo to really sell new audiences on its latest console — but that’s not exactly what happened. While there were some impressive-looking titles, there wasn’t much that felt truly new. Instead, the two major Switch 2 exclusives that will round out the 2026 calendar are both remakes from the Nintendo 64 era.

If you missed it, the final reveal of the Direct was a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Switch 2. We don’t know when, exactly, it’s launching, but Nintendo says it’ll be out this year. The brief teaser didn’t reveal much of what the game will look like, nor how it might differ from the N64 original, so chances are you can expect an Ocarina-focused Direct in the coming months that will detail more. Whenever it comes out, the Ocarina remake will follow the Star Fox remake, which is launching later this month in an attempt to revitalize Nintendo’s long-dormant sci-fi series for modern audiences.

To be clear, Nintendo has a solid lineup for the Switch 2 for the rest of 2026, and already had two pretty big hits so far with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream and Pokopia (which is getting a series of expansions starting this year). For the rest of the calendar we’ve got: beloved strategy series Fire Emblem returning with Fortune’s Weave on September 17th; the Wii Sports energy coming back with Nintendo Switch Sports Resort on October 22nd; and the summer duo of Splatoon Raiders and Rhythm Heaven Groove, which continue to look great. That’s on top of strong third-party support with games like Final Fantasy Resonance, FromSoftware’s The Duskbloods, and ports of titles like Atlus’ Metaphor: ReFantazio and Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2.

But mostly, Nintendo seems to be playing things very safe, particularly in comparison to the original Switch. That console launched alongside a complete reinvention of the Legend of Zelda formula, which was followed just a few months later by a strange and expansive version of Super Mario. Even the Switch’s twilight years featured bold takes on Nintendo’s tentpole franchises with games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Things got off to a good start for the Switch 2 with a twist on the Mario Kart formula and a Donkey Kong game elevated to tentpole status. For the most part, though, the lineup has been full of familiar titles in the form of remakes and original Switch games that have been upgraded in some way for the Switch 2.

It’s not as if the Nintendo of the past was immune to remakes and rereleases. Its best-selling non-pack-in game ever, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch, is a port of a Wii U title. But seeing the upcoming Switch 2 schedule dominated by a pair of remakes, coupled with the fact that neither Zelda nor Super Mario has an original game on the console (yet), makes me worried that Nintendo might be a little too complacent following its dominating Switch era. That seems like a particularly dangerous mindset in 2026, when nearly every major video game company is struggling to manage the chaotic state of the industry. Nothing is a sure thing right now.

This isn’t new for Nintendo — in fact, playing things safe is a defining trait of the company’s current era. The Switch 2 itself is an iteration of an existing idea, and other ventures like feature films have hewed to closely established norms. It hasn’t prevented Nintendo from being successful; the Switch 2 got off to a fast start, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie made $1 billion despite being largely forgettable. And Nintendo isn’t exactly bucking the norm by staying conservative. Over the past week at Summer Game Fest, we saw Sony seemingly make a return to lavish single-player games, while Microsoft is toying with the concept of console exclusives again. With the industry in disarray, the biggest companies are coming back to ideas that worked in the past.

But one of the things that has also defined Nintendo is the creativity and ingenuity that leads to oddball ideas like a dual-screened handheld or a bunch of cardboard video game accessories. Nintendo zigs when everyone else zags, and often succeeds because of it. That is part of the reason the company has managed to weather some of the many storms that are currently ravaging the rest of the video game industry.

At its very best, Nintendo finds the right balance between being conservative and being inventive. The Switch 2 needs a few more daring ideas to push the scale back in the right direction.