While we were busy running around the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last week in search of VR and AR goodies, Nintendo was busy launching a new console, the Switch.
This hybrid device acts as both a handheld and a home console with detachable controllers that allow you to play how you want. Of course, how we really want to play is in VR, and things are a little murky on that point at the moment. Nintendo says it might integrate VR support if some of the tech’s challenges can be solved, but many VR fans struggle to see how the console would be capable of VR at all, even if the controllers look the part.
Let’s pretend for a minute that our dreams do come true, however, and Nintendo uses its magic to make Switch a VR compatible console. What would we want to see on that device? There’s no end to awesome franchises the company has come up with over the past few decades, but what makes most sense for VR? Below, we’ve thought up seven VR games we’ve love to play in VR on Switch, considering the console’s limitations.
F-Zero
The F-Zero franchise is a Nintendo series that is tough to talk about, simply because it has been gone for so long. We haven’t had a new entry since 2004’s F-Zero Climax, which only hit Japan. VR is the perfect venue for a grand return as a cockpit-based racer similar to Radial-G or Redout.
You could feel the speed rushing past you as you screech down sci-fi highways, your vehicle teetering on the edge of falling to your doom.
Pokemon Stadium
Pokemon GO may be setting a new standard for AR gaming, but the series could be doing the same for VR too. We’d love a full Pokemon adventure in VR but, considering the Switch’s limitations, we’d welcome a sequel to Nintendo’s forgotten Stadium series too, casting you as a trainer that orders his friends in battle.
Imagine throwing out a Pokeball with your motion controller, or caring for your Pikachu in VR between battles. That’s a dream come true for many.
WarioWare
No Nintendo series routinely makes a better case for the company’s weird and wonderful hardware than the WarioWare franchise. Mario’s nemesis enjoyed a new lease of life when he moved out of the platforming business and into his own brand of strange, think-fast mini games that weren’t afraid to ask you to do the craziest things.
We almost dread to think that Nintendo could come up with in VR, but we’d want to play it all the same.
Punch-Out VR
Nintendo is using Switch to launch a new IP, Arms!, which looks a little like a super-powered version of its Punch-Out!! series. While we’d love to see the former in VR, the original Punch-Out!! name deserves the treatment first.
Games like Knockout League show us how much fun boxing can be with a headset on, and Switch’s detachable Joy-Con controllers make it perfect for Nintendo’s own take on the genre in VR.
Link’s Master Sword Training
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the most highly-rated video games of all-time and it just released last week. Though one of Links’ other recent entries in The Legend of Zelda series, Link’s Crossbow Training, is a bit more obscure, it’s part of the legacy all the same. It was a pack-in game for the Wii Zapper peripheral, based on Twilight Princess.
We’d love to see a similar Switch VR pack-in game based on the latest game in the series, Breath of the Wild, only this time instead of a third-person shooter, we get a full first-person Master Sword simulator that lets us battle the game’s baddest enemies as if we were the legendary hero himself.
Super Mario VR World
Mario is finally set to return in a big, full 3D adventure on Switch this year with Super Mario Odyssey, but we still fondly remember his last Wii U outing, Super Mario 3D World and it’s sibling, Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS.
Both were brilliant isometric platformers and, if Lucky’s Tale taught us anything, it’s that that style of game can work very well in VR. We’d expect Nintendo to play all kinds of tricks on our perspective here, using VR in clever ways no one has yet thought of. It’s what the company does best.
Metroid Prime
As if F-Zero’s absence wasn’t enough, the beloved Metroid series has been missing from Nintendo’s software line-up for nearly seven years now, save for last year’s dismal Federation Force spin-off. The sense of isolation captured in the Metroid franchise is second to none, and an absolutely perfect premise for a VR adventure.
The Prime series from Retro Studios successfully translated Samus Aran’s adventures into first-person, now it’s time for them to go one step further.
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Which VR Switch games would you like to see? Let us know in the comments below!
