5 Xbox games we’d love to see on Nintendo Switch

Microsoft has recently announced a 10-year deal with Nintendo that will bring Xbox games to the Switch and its successors. The news was revealed by Brad Smith, vice president of the company, and seems to put the focus on Call of Duty in order to have the purchase of Activision Blizzard approved. However, this decision could also lead to the launch of many other projects in the Nintendo hybrid console and today at MeriStation we wondered what recent Xbox titles we would like to see make the jump. Surely impossible dreams, since it is most probable that this policy will be applied from now on and does not have revisionist intentions, but we can always hope. Here’s 5 titles we’d love to get on the Nintendo Switch as soon as they launched on the platform.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

Back in 2019, Microsoft celebrated the Age of Empires 2 20th Anniversary with a Definitive Edition that remastered the entire soundtrack of the game and revamped its graphics. Far from being satisfied with this, those responsible added playable tweaks, dedicated servers for multiplayer, 3 new campaigns and 4 new civilizations. We know that Age of Empires is usually associated with a keyboard and mouse, but on January 31, 2023, Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition received a port for Xbox that broke with that idea and showed that it is also perfectly enjoyable with controllers.

Nintendo Switch has proven to be a perfect platform for the RTS genre (thanks to Mario + Rabbids) and having the king of Kings of the genre would be a real hit. But if we’re saying AoE 2 we must also say Age of Empires IV, the future Age of Mythology: Retold or why not Gears Tactics. Long live the pocket strategy.

Hi-Fi Rush

We are still in February, but it will be difficult for someone to take the title of surprise of the year from Hi-Fi Rush. The game from Tango Gameworks (the creators of The Evil Within) was announced overnight in a Developer Direct from Xbox and went on sale at the end of its presentation. Its curious anti-marketing maneuver has turned out to have nothing to do with the quality of the product, as Hi-Fi Rush stands with an 88 on MetaCritic at this moment. It Is Bethesda's highest rated game since Skyrim and the second highest score of the year, behind only Dead Space Remake. And the truth is that Nintendo Switch would fit it like a glove.

We are not saying this only because of its colorful graphics, but because the Nintendo platform enjoys a great relationship with the hack and slash genre (above all because of their partnership with Platinum Games, crystallized in Bayonetta 3 and Astral Chain). But the fun of Hi-Fi Rush is to combine its combos and platforming with musical mechanics, in the manner of the last Rayman or Crypt of the NecroDancer. AND. Remember that Nintendo also likes the proposal enough to have given the green light to something like Cadence of Hyrule, putting the Zelda license in the hands of others, with all that this entails. Hi-Fi Rush seems like a lost scion of the console.

Rare Replay

For their 30th birthday, Rare released a beautiful compilation that gathered 30 of the studio's video games. Classics like Banjo-Kazooie, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark and Battletoads (whose recent reboot we wouldn't mind seeing on Nintendo Switch either). A project that we loved, but that had a catch: it was exclusive to Xbox One. Not even PC users could enjoy it. And do you know what all the names mentioned have in common? They originally came out for the NES and Nintendo 64.. Or what is the same, most of its fans are linked to Nintendo and not to the Microsoft.

It is true that its adaptation would have problems, since a large part of those 30 included games could appear thanks to the backward compatibility of Xbox One with 360. Still, the compilation would continue to be very dignified and a nice treat for Nintendo Switch owners. The appearance of such a collection of industry classics in the successor to the console that saw them born would be like closeing the circle.

Psychonauts 2

Although Sony reared its head in the days of Crash Bandicoot, Spyro or Jak & Daxter, let's not kid ourselves,Nintendo rules the jumping and platforming landscape with an iron fist. Jumping is not as satisfying with anyone as it is with Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby or Samus, among many other characters from the Miyamoto factory. Nintendo Switch is well served with pirouettes and capers with the incessant rain of indies (Celeste, Fez) and remasters of classics (Mark of the Ninja, Sonic Mania Plus), but the truth is that these examples are almost entirely 2D and there is a lack of exponents of a certain magnitude that have approached the genre from the three dimensions. And that's where Psychonauts 2 comes in.

Although it took its sweet time (more than 15 years after the original), Psychonauts 2 was a platformer whose 87 on Metacritic shows the boast of imagination proposed by the game and the good work at the controls of Double Fine and Tim Schafer. In its day, the jump to 3D platforming was about to lead to its disappearance and showed that it is not easy to carry out, but Psychonauts 2 will surely be the best of recent times. Its arrival, after that of either Ori or Cuphead, would be to bring Microsoft's sharp platform spearhead to Nintendo Switch and face it with the crème de la crème.

Pentiment

And we close with Obsidian, of course. we could ask to bring us some Fallout to Nintendo Switch (The Outer Worlds worked very well), but we're not going to ask for much. Which is why we're begging you to broaden the horizons of Pentiment (and if you want to do the same with Grounded, we're not complaining either). For those without a Steam Deck, the Nintendo Switch has become like a portable library of Alexandria, but changing the books for indies. Pentiment was one of the best representatives of last year and it is a perfect experience for the console (even more so in the case of the OLED version that takes advantage of its artistic section).

Josh Sawyer said that Pentiment would not have existed without Xbox Game Pass, so taking advantage of the mention of the game, it is impossible not to talk about the topic. And a version of the service for Nintendo Switch? EA and Ubisoft have brought their respective subscriptions to Microsoft and Sony platforms, so, set to bring your games to Nintendo, why not do it through a similar system? It seems unlikely, but just as unexpected was the 10-year agreement between Microsoft and Nintendo and here we are. A future full of questions and unknowns is opening up to us. What would you like to see on Nintendo Switch?