The preview embargo has lifted on Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, and Wuhu Island is getting a warm welcome back. Ahead of the game’s October 22 launch on Nintendo Switch 2 — it’s a Switch 2 exclusive, despite the name — outlets from IGN and Engadget to CNET and Game Informer published hands-on impressions on October 6, and the wave of coverage is notably positive. For a console that’s spent the autumn shipping RPGs and remasters, a family-friendly motion sports package is a different kind of swing.
Twelve Events, One Bigger Island
Switch Sports Resort includes 12 motion-controlled events: archery, basketball, bowling, boxing, golf, power cruising, prop plane, skateboarding, table tennis, tennis, thumb wrestling and volleyball — six returning from 2022’s Nintendo Switch Sports and six more returning after a much longer absence, some last seen in 2009’s Wii Sports Resort. And the motion controls themselves feel modernized: GamesRadar’s reviewer found them “more responsive using a Joy-Con 2 than they used to with a Wiimote.”
Wuhu Island, the tropical retreat that’s popped up in everything from Mario Kart to Smash Bros. since its Wii Fit debut, has been expanded with a series of whole new surrounding islands. Beyond the competitive sports, there are deeper solo offerings — boxing’s Island Crown mode pits you against 20 ranked opponents without going online, and online play is added across the competitive events.
The Skateboarding Surprise
The most unexpected praise goes to the game’s free-roam “Sightseeing Tours,” and to skateboarding in particular — which uses the Switch 2’s mouse controls. Resting the Joy-Con’s flat edge on a table, you pull the controller toward you, mirroring a virtual foot pulling back, finding the rhythm to gather speed as you explore Wuhu Island’s roadways — and a quick upward flick leaps onto grind rails for tricks. Eurogamer, which spent an hour with the game at Gamescom, calls it “oddly hypnotic, the perfect marriage of motion and on-screen movement” — and names it the favourite of the entire hands-on.
The other sightseeing tours let you fly a prop plane by holding the Joy-Con like a paper aeroplane, or ride a jet ski in power cruising mode, collecting “Spocco Photos” — essentially the i Points from the Wii game — as you explore. GamesRadar’s reviewer flew straight down the volcano, and reports that not only can you still do that, the inside has been expanded into a larger cave system than before. The pre-order gift, fittingly, is a finger skateboard.
The verdicts trend the same way. “Switch Sports Resort is looking promising, and suggests Switch 2 could have another family favourite hit to its name as it star-jumps into the festive season,” Eurogamer writes, while GamesRadar admits “any doubts I had about returning to Wuhu Island next month have been squashed.” With Kingdom Hearts Collection I-III arriving October 8 and Switch Sports Resort on October 22, the Switch 2’s October is looking unusually crowded.
Sources
- Eurogamer — I spent an hour playing Switch Sports Resort and my favourite mini-game involves the Switch 2’s least-loved gimmick: mouse controls
- GamesRadar — I flew straight down the volcano in Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, and I’m happy to report that one of my favorite childhood activities just got way better