Nintendo announces ‘Direct mini’ showcase for Monday morning

by | Jul 19, 2020 | [Tech News], The Verge

Nintendo’s schedule of upcoming Switch games for the rest of the year is almost entirely bare, but that could change very soon; the company just announced a Direct broadcast for 10AM ET Monday morning. As in, today.

Nintendo is describing the broadcast as “the first Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, a new series focused on titles from our development and publishing partners.” It’ll be about 10 minutes long and provide updates on a “small group” of previously announced games for the Switch.

While there aren’t many Switch games with release dates set, there are quite a few that have been announced that might conceivably qualify for this broadcast. Here are some examples:

  • Metroid Prime 4 — now being developed by Retro Studios, a Nintendo subsidiary that describes itself as a “partner”
  • Bayonetta 3 — announced in 2017 at The Game Awards, but yet to be shown off
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 — announced at last year’s E3, but probably doesn’t count for this Direct unless there’s a surprise about who’s developing it
  • Shin Megami Tensei V — the latest instalment in Atlus’ RPG franchise was announced at the Switch’s reveal event all the way back in January 2017, and there’s been almost no information since
  • No More Heroes 3 — this is supposedly releasing in 2020 and has had a couple of teaser trailers, so could well be set for a wider reveal soon
  • Hollow Knight: Silksong — the Hollow Knight sequel will be a Switch console exclusive at first, but it doesn’t have a release date
  • Bravely Default 2 — Square Enix’s sequel to the 3DS RPGs is another Nintendo exclusive set for 2020
  • Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers — this Switch/PS4 Persona 5 spin-off sequel is already out in Japan (and pretty good), with no Western release confirmed as of yet
  • Doom Eternal — the Switch version was initially meant to launch day-and-date with other platforms, but it got pushed back to later in the year

I’d be surprised if none of these showed up, but who knows — maybe Nintendo will have something else in store. As of this writing, we have a little over nine hours until we find out.