The strongest recommendation is for the base edition. Existing owners already receive Enhanced for free; newcomers do not need Deluxe to obtain its improvements. The separate Charting the Unknown expansion is outside this review’s verdict.

Methodology: Game features and patch details in this research-based editorial review have been checked against official sources. GamerHeadlines has not conducted a new playthrough or current cross-platform performance test. The screenshots are supplied by Pearl Abyss.

What makes Crimson Desert worth playing?

Pywel works best as a place that gives you competing reasons to change direction. Kliff’s effort to reunite the Greymanes supplies a starting purpose, while climbing, gliding, fighting and investigating ruins create the opportunities between objectives. Pearl Abyss’s official overview establishes the breadth of the setting. The question is what that breadth asks of the player.

An open world becomes convincing when learning how to move through it changes what you notice. A high ledge becomes a possible route; an unfamiliar mechanism becomes a reason to investigate an ability; preparation gives a small resource-gathering detour a purpose. Crimson Desert’s strongest design argument is that these activities can feed one another.

That appeal is not universal. Reaching somewhere unusual can be a reward in itself, but some players need a useful item, a memorable quest or a story revelation at the end. The world can be rich in possibilities and still feel unrewarding to someone who dislikes choosing their own goals.

Our recommendation rests on the first kind of enjoyment. Buy it because exploring and learning look appealing. A large map alone is an insufficient reason to expect a satisfying adventure.

Pywel’s towns sit within the landscape you explore. Official base-game image: Pearl Abyss.

Combat gives experimentation a purpose

The combat proposition is broader than sword combos. The official game description includes weapon attacks, unarmed blows, kicks and grapples. That mix gives ordinary encounters a rough, physical character. Choosing how to open an enemy’s defense matters alongside the damage dealt afterward.

The cost is learning a vocabulary of inputs while also reading attacks and managing resources. A large move set is valuable when it creates understandable choices. When the player is still trying to remember the controls, additional options can become additional friction.

This makes Crimson Desert a conditional recommendation for action fans. Someone who enjoys practicing a complex toolkit has a stronger reason to persist than someone expecting every ability to become comfortable immediately. The documented difficulty options now make that learning process more adjustable, although they cannot establish how responsive an individual player’s setup will feel.

Enhanced fixes specific problems

The current purchase includes changes made after launch. Pearl Abyss’s 1.04.00 update introduced Easy, Normal and Hard settings, storage items, inventory categories and control presets. Easy reduces enemy pressure and widens parry and dodge windows. These changes directly affect players who want more room to learn.

The Enhanced update, version 2.00.00, subsequently added narrative material and revised skill progression. Abyss Links give the other playable characters a corresponding resource when one spends Abyss Artifacts learning skills; individual character resets are also supported. That reduces a specific source of friction in distributing progression across the cast.

Enhanced makes the present purchase more attractive because these are functional changes. It would still be an overreach to treat the patch list as proof that the campaign, controls and every boss now satisfy all players. Several identifiable barriers have been addressed, while the game’s dense underlying design remains the deciding factor.

The story struggles to organize the abundance

Rebuilding a scattered group of comrades is an effective emotional premise. It gives a camp, a side activity or a recovered ally a potential connection to Kliff’s larger purpose. Crimson Desert is less persuasive when the distance between that purpose and the next task becomes difficult to ignore.

A game can contain many conversations and dramatic events without giving the player a strong reason to care about the next one. Equally, a player who enjoys inhabiting the world may find meaning in activities the main plot barely acknowledges.

Enhanced’s new story material addresses this area explicitly. Narrative-focused buyers should examine the revised scenes before choosing the game for its story.

Players who need a clear narrative payoff for every extended diversion should weigh that preference more heavily than the game’s scale or feature list.

The puzzles show both the depth and the friction

In the Monolith Crown challenge, the documented solution involves manipulating a laser cube, keeping track of camera orientation and completing a separate floor-switch activation. Understanding the central object is only part of completing the task.

The Path of Trials uses a different relationship between mechanics. A power panel must be thawed, moved and fitted into the mechanism before it freezes again. Traversal, environmental rules and ability use become one problem. These examples illustrate the game’s ambitions without requiring story spoilers or a list of puzzle answers.

The appeal is learning a rule and applying it somewhere unfamiliar. The frustration is uncertainty about whether a failure comes from a wrong idea, missing progression or the execution of a correct solution. A difficult puzzle feels fairer when the game communicates that difference.

Crimson Desert therefore suits patient problem-solvers more readily than players who want constant direction. A guide can remove an occasional roadblock; needing one for every unfamiliar interaction would undermine the discovery that makes the game attractive in the first place.

The smaller activities are part of the purchase decision

Gathering, cooking, fishing and camp development help explain why two people can value the same game so differently. These systems can make preparation feel like participating in a place. They can also make progress feel dependent on errands.

Cooking has more purpose when preparing for a fight; collecting materials feels more worthwhile when an upgrade changes what you can attempt. Problems arise when the preparation consumes the time and energy a player wanted to spend on the destination.

Crimson Desert offers many ways to occupy an evening, but occupation and satisfaction are different standards. The strongest audience is happy to choose a modest objective and let the world interrupt it. Someone who wants a short, reliably productive session may find the same structure exhausting.

An ordinary rural task sits beside the game’s larger fantasy ambitions. Official base-game image: Pearl Abyss.

Standard, Deluxe or the expansion?

Start with Standard unless you specifically want the Deluxe equipment pack. At the October 23 US Steam check, the base edition cost $69.99 and Deluxe cost $79.99, a $10 difference. Those prices are storefront- and date-specific. The listing identifies Deluxe’s armor, shield and horse-equipment extras.

Pearl Abyss confirms that Enhanced is a free base-game update. An existing owner should update the game; buying Deluxe is not the route to those improvements.

The forthcoming expansion’s ocean and underwater features should not inflate the base game’s verdict. Its official page also excludes the Mac App Store at launch, an important distinction for that particular storefront.

Platform checks before buying

There is no defensible platform-performance winner in this review. The PC Steam listing requires an SSD and 180 GB of available space. Frame-rate expectations require separate, hardware-specific evidence. Check the full requirements against your hardware and seek recent evidence for the platform you intend to use.

The official announcement list checked on October 23 showed 2.03.02 as its latest patch entry. Its rollout table still described the Mac App Store version as in progress. Platform and storefront distinctions matter even when the update carries an all-platform label.

The store also identifies the game as single-player. If co-op is the reason you are shopping, the current product does not meet that requirement.

Who should buy Crimson Desert?

Crimson Desert earns its recommendation through the relationship between movement, discovery and a broad set of tools. Enhanced strengthens that case by addressing difficulty, storage and progression problems that made the original learning curve harder to justify.

Its weaknesses remain relevant to the buying decision. The interface between player and possibility is dense, the campaign’s appeal is less convincing than the world around it, and the pace can turn preparation into the main event. More content does not resolve a mismatch between those demands and the way someone likes to play.

Choose it if learning Pywel sounds like the pleasure itself. Wait for a discount if you are curious but uncertain about the time and patience involved. Story-first players and anyone seeking co-op have clearer reasons to look elsewhere. Standard is the sensible starting point; Deluxe and the separate expansion need their own justification.

This is unofficial content containing Pearl Abyss copyrighted material and IP. It is not created or endorsed by Pearl Abyss.

Our verdict: strongly recommended for players who enjoy gradual progress and self-directed goals. GamerHeadlines score: 9/10. Anyone seeking a completely pressure-free decorating game should approach more cautiously.

Review method: This is a research-based editorial review, drawing on official game information, documented mechanics, and published critical and player feedback. The 9/10 score is GamerHeadlines’ editorial judgment under the criteria explained in this article; it does not represent a new GamerHeadlines playthrough. Images are official screenshots supplied through the game’s Steam gallery.

What the experience feels like

Stardew Valley creates a steady rhythm of intention, interruption, and adjustment. A day can begin with crops and animals, then change because a villager is nearby, the weather suits a rare fish, or the mine elevator is one checkpoint away. The satisfaction comes from choosing among those possibilities and seeing small decisions accumulate into a farm with a distinct shape. The tension comes from knowing that the clock continues while those options compete for attention. That balance explains both the 9/10 recommendation and the main reservation: it is exceptional when planning feels playful, but less relaxing when unfinished tasks feel like failure.

The farm works because progress changes your choices

The opening is wonderfully legible: an inherited farm, an overgrown plot, a modest set of tools, and a town nearby. Planting something and selling the harvest establishes a purpose before the wider game has to explain itself. There is a satisfying physical relationship between effort and result. Yesterday’s weeds become today’s cleared ground; a neglected corner becomes a productive field.

The more interesting achievement is how the activities connect. Crops generate income, mining supplies materials, and upgrades help loosen the constraints on future work. A task that begins as a way to afford something can lead into another part of the valley. The getting-started reference lays out that unusually broad range of activities, from fishing and crafting to museum donations and restoration.

This is where the game earns its longevity. The reward for improvement can be a different kind of day. Sprinklers reduce watering duties; an improved tool can make a resource trip more practical. The appealing question becomes what to do with the time and capacity you have gained.

There is a weakness on the other side of that design. Expanding the farm can simply mean assigning yourself more maintenance. Buying another animal or adding another production line is only satisfying if you want the routine it creates. Stardew offers room to build an efficient business, but a larger business is not automatically a better life.

For players who want to avoid early purchases that create awkward bottlenecks, our Stardew Valley tool-upgrade guide explains the costs and timing without turning this review into a shopping checklist.

Is Stardew Valley actually relaxing?

It can be, but the relaxation comes from accepting unfinished plans. The day-cycle rules give the farmer a working day from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. before passing out. Time normally pauses in single-player menus, while multiplayer does not automatically offer the same breathing room.

That creates a persistent trade-off. A trip across town uses time that could have gone into fishing. A longer mining excursion leaves less room for a conversation or shopping. These choices give ordinary activities consequence. They also explain why the word “cozy” can give newcomers the wrong expectation.

Seasons add a slower deadline. Each lasts 28 days, and most outdoor crops die at a seasonal change unless they can also grow in the next season. The season rules make the stakes clear: some mistakes cost a harvest, and some missed opportunities require patience before they return.

The important distinction is between losing an opportunity and ruining the save. Years continue without a fixed limit. A missed plan can be disappointing without ending the game. That makes the pressure manageable for a player willing to let a day be imperfect, while an optimizer can make the same calendar feel punishing.

This tension is central to the recommendation. If fitting a few chosen activities into a day sounds absorbing, Stardew is exceptionally well suited to you. If every unfinished task feels like failure, its clock may be the biggest obstacle to enjoying it.

The Community Center gives freedom a direction

The Community Center is one of Stardew’s strongest pieces of structure. Its bundles ask for a range of items rather than allowing every problem to collapse into the most profitable crop. Completing rooms provides practical rewards, connecting exploration and collection to changes in the wider valley. The bundle reference also documents the alternative Joja route, which substitutes payments for that collection structure.

The design benefit is variety with a purpose. Fishing matters beyond its sale value; a seasonal crop can be worth saving; an animal product can complete something larger than the morning’s earnings. It is a persuasive answer to the question of what to do when an open-ended game gives you several options at once.

The friction is information. An item can seem disposable before its future usefulness becomes apparent. Deciding what to keep, which purchase to delay, or whether an opportunity is seasonal can interrupt the sense of easy discovery. Stardew rewards accumulated knowledge, and it does not always deliver that knowledge gracefully.

Looking things up solves the uncertainty, but exhaustive planning can flatten the pleasure of finding something unexpected. The better first-playthrough approach is to use a guide for a specific frustration and leave room for the rest of the world to remain unfamiliar.

Pelican Town gives the routines a human purpose

The townspeople make a compelling case for spending time inefficiently. Visiting someone need not be the best financial decision to feel worthwhile. Friendship opens dialogue, heart events, mailed gifts, and, for eligible characters, romance; the friendship system ties those developments to repeated attention.

The writing gives the village a useful range of moods. Its warmth has room for loneliness, frustration, family tensions, and people whose first impression is not especially welcoming. Those rougher edges make the setting more persuasive than a town where every resident exists only to praise the farmer.

The social design is also limited by its machinery. Finding a particular resident and repeating a gifting routine can become another obligation. Once preferences are reduced to a reference table, choosing a present risks becoming a resource transaction rather than an act of curiosity.

That does not make the relationships empty. It makes them most effective when the player is interested in a few characters rather than treating the entire social menu as a second completion bar. Our villager-gift guide can remove the practical uncertainty when it becomes frustrating; it is not a requirement to optimize every friendship.

Fishing and mining provide variety, with uneven results

Fishing is a clever counterweight to farming because it asks for a different kind of attention. The player keeps a fish inside a moving catch bar, while species availability depends on conditions including location, season, weather, and time. The fishing reference explains both the inputs and the ways skill and equipment can make the minigame more manageable.

Its distinctiveness is also its divisiveness. A precision task can feel like a welcome interruption to planning, or like an unexpectedly demanding gate inside a gentle-looking game. The Training Rod helps with the early learning curve, but it does not change the fundamental activity into something every player will enjoy.

Mining provides a different rhythm: decide what to carry, descend, collect resources, and judge when to leave. The original Mines have 120 floors with elevator checkpoints at five-floor intervals. That structure, documented in the Mines reference, turns a large objective into smaller trips with usable progress.

Combat is the less convincing part of the package. It supplies danger and breaks up resource gathering, but its relatively simple attacks and movement leave it less expressive than the farming and planning systems around it. Players drawn primarily to action should expect a supporting activity rather than the main attraction.

The balance works because no single activity has to carry the whole game. It becomes weaker when a needed resource sends a player repeatedly into the system they like least.

Update 1.6 adds reasons to return without replacing the game

The official 1.6 changelog includes the Meadowlands Farm, which starts with a coop and two chickens; a mastery system; new festivals; additional dialogue; and a summer environmental event. These additions broaden both the opening choices and the longer-term goals.

Meadowlands is particularly useful as an example of meaningful variety. Starting around animals changes the emphasis of the first few days. Mastery gives established characters further progression, while events interrupt the calendar with something different to investigate. Our green-rain guide covers one of those interruptions if it catches you unprepared.

For returning players, the question is why they stopped. Someone who enjoyed the core routine and simply exhausted their curiosity has good reasons to return. Someone who disliked repeated chores or the daily clock should expect those fundamentals to remain. More content cannot resolve a mismatch with the central loop.

This review evaluates the documented 1.6-era game. Unreleased features are not included in the recommendation, and no promised update is treated as part of a purchase today.

Solo or co-op: which is better?

Solo is the clearest recommendation for a first farm if you want control over the pace. There is no need to negotiate purchases, farm layouts, or when the group should end a day. It also leaves more room to read and experiment without worrying about another player’s plans.

Co-op changes the appeal from building a personal routine to coordinating a shared one. Dividing jobs can make the farm less demanding: one person tends crops while another fishes or gathers materials. The trade-off is social as much as mechanical. A player optimizing income and a player happily decorating can want very different things from the same afternoon.

The multiplayer reference documents shared-farm rules and platform differences. There is no universal console/PC crossplay. For a group buying copies together, our Stardew Valley compatibility guide is worth checking before choosing a platform.

Mobile has a specific exception: ConcernedApe’s official mobile multiplayer guide describes an experimental IP-based mode that can join a PC-hosted farm. It excludes Stardew Valley+ on Apple Arcade and warns about mobile connectivity limitations. That makes it a useful extra possibility, rather than the safest foundation for a group purchase.

Which version should you buy?

Choose around the people and input method you want to play with. The central farming game is only part of the buying decision; mod access and multiplayer compatibility can matter more over time.

PC has the strongest argument for players who expect to customize the game. The modding guide covers the SMAPI loader and distinguishes supported platforms. Mods can change presentation, add convenience, or expand the game, but they introduce their own compatibility work. They are a reason to choose PC, not a prerequisite for enjoying the original game.

The official Nintendo Switch 2 listing advertises online play for up to eight players and local and online GameShare support, subject to Nintendo’s requirements. Those are useful edition features; they do not imply universal crossplay. This review does not make an independently tested performance comparison between platforms.

Presentation and value remain major strengths

The pixel art communicates seasons and spaces with remarkable economy. Autumn crops, a snow-covered route, the warm interior of a house, and a mine lit by small pools of light all give the same basic movement across a map a different mood. The official screenshots throughout this review show why the visual identity remains such a strong part of the attraction.

The soundtrack supports that sense of place without requiring cinematic spectacle. Its melodies give the seasons a recognizable character, helping the calendar feel like more than a schedule of available items. The presentation makes returning to familiar places part of the reward.

Value is straightforward. The US Steam store listed the base game at $14.99 when checked on October 21, 2026. Regional prices, other storefronts, and future discounts can differ. There is ample scope for long-term play, but the amount available is less important than whether you enjoy repeating and refining the daily routine.

The game does not need an invented completion-time estimate to justify itself. A player can be satisfied with a modest farm, pursue the restoration goals, or keep expanding into later areas and collections. Its value comes from supporting those different stopping points.

What holds Stardew Valley back?

The biggest weaknesses are closely connected to the strengths. A detailed calendar makes planning satisfying but creates missed windows. A large set of interconnected systems rewards learning but increases reference-checking. A farm that can keep expanding can also become a routine the player no longer wants to maintain.

The later game supplies new goals, including the distinct setting and progression of Ginger Island, but additional objectives do not guarantee that every player will enjoy continuing. It is reasonable to stop when the daily work stops being interesting. Completion is an available ambition, not the only valid reason to play.

That is the most useful caution in a buying recommendation: Stardew is excellent at making ordinary tasks meaningful, but it still asks you to enjoy ordinary tasks. Its charm can make repetitive actions rewarding; it cannot make repetition disappear.

Verdict: an excellent place to build your own routine

Stardew Valley deserves its lasting appeal because its different systems give one another purpose. Growing crops supports an upgrade, the upgrade changes an expedition, and the expedition contributes to a farm or town that visibly improves. Its most satisfying progression gives the player more freedom to decide what tomorrow will contain.

The recommendation is strongest for patient players who like making plans, adjusting them, and taking pleasure in gradual change. It is weaker for anyone who needs constant action, firm direction, or a setting without time pressure.

Strongly recommended, with one practical condition: buy it because the daily life sounds appealing, rather than because you feel obliged to finish everything it contains.

You wake in one room. Three elevators, numbered 10, 12 and 14. A terminal on a plinth in the middle of the floor. Nobody explains anything, because there is no voice, no tutorial and no quest marker anywhere in IN & OUT. The terminal shows you a symbol, and the symbol means nothing until you go and find out what it is.

That is the whole design, and the title is the instruction. The IN is everything the facility holds, meaning its rooms, screens, mechanisms and glyphs. The OUT is whatever you can drag back from the real world. KASTEN, an independent French studio making its first game, names the loop in four steps: Observe, Research, Understand, Decide. Only the first and last happen on screen. The middle two happen in a browser tab, a reference book, or a message to the one friend who knows what that symbol is.

What the Facility Looks Like

Project ISO is a cold blue box somewhere between a clinical laboratory and a datacenter that never ends, built in Godot and lit almost entirely by strip lights and terminal glow. The screenshots sell the tone better than the copy does. One shows a corridor floor carpeted in numbers and glyphs. Another shows a wall where somebody has scratched NO AI !! in something like chalk, which is the single most interesting frame in the whole press kit and the only hint that anyone lived here before you.

An artificial intelligence supervises without ever explaining itself. It records what you choose and opens the next door, or does not. There is no combat and no inventory to fall back on. Every room is a rule you have to work out before you are allowed to leave it.

Steam currently lists five user reviews, which is too few for a review percentage to appear at all, so there is no crowd verdict to measure any of this against yet.

Where the Idea Gets Risky

Games have sent players outside themselves before. Her Story made you a search engine operator, and The Roottrees Are Dead built a detective game out of a fake database. Both kept the answers inside an archive the developer wrote. IN & OUT does not, which is the better hook and the harder thing to balance.

The penalty is where the marketing undersells the design. Steam tags the game Perma Death, and the press kit warns that a wrong answer may end the run. What actually happens is gentler. Guess wrong and the facility drops you back to the lowest floor, so you lose the climb rather than the save, and you walk back up carrying something you did not know on the way down. That is a far better system than the tags advertise, because the cost of being wrong is time and the reward for being wrong is information. Each puzzle still accepts exactly one answer, which means the whole thing rests on a symbol having exactly one findable meaning, and on your search terms being as good as the designer’s.

A slower problem sits underneath. A game whose solutions live on the open web inherits the web’s decay. Puzzles anchored in history, mythology or science will age fine. Anything anchored in a search ranking will not.

Built to Be Watched

IN & OUT is single-player, and KASTEN is open about wanting it played in company anyway. The studio’s own pitch to creators imagines audience-assisted research, viewer voting on the final answer, and self-imposed challenge runs with no searching allowed. That last one is the tell. A game where the honest way to play is the hard mode, and where the community will invent its own restrictions, is a game that understands what it built.

Project ISO Runs Outside the Game Too

The facility has a backstory the game never tells you. KASTEN says Project ISO is the first artificial intelligence to build its own language model and infrastructure unaided, and that it ran into one thing it could not reproduce, which is human deductive reasoning. The experiments you are walking through are its attempt to learn it.

That fiction continues outside the software, which is fitting for a game about looking outside the software. The Project ISO website is written entirely in character, with running system logs, a charter called The Elevation Manifesto, references to automated Dark Facilities and a Volunteer Program whose sign-up button drops you on the Steam page. The studio points to its X account, @project_iso_ai, as another source of fragments.

None of it is explained in the game. Given what IN & OUT asks of you inside the facility, leaving the lore to be found rather than narrated is almost certainly deliberate, and it is the most confident decision the studio has made.

The Verdict

The asking price is 4.99 dollars, and that number is doing a lot of work, because IN & OUT is short. Short enough that it reads like the opening chapter of something bigger. It is one, as the wider Project ISO fiction makes clear, but that does not change what lands on your drive today. KASTEN gives no length anywhere on the store page, in the press kit or in the launch posts, and that silence is the one place the game is less forthcoming than it should be, because length is the number a five dollar puzzle game is bought or skipped on. There are 15 achievements, HDR support and Family Sharing, and there is no demo.

Finish cleanly and there is a small payoff waiting. It lands better cold, so this review will not describe it.

What KASTEN has is a real idea, executed with more confidence than most debuts manage and described without the usual inflation. What it does not yet have is scale. As a five dollar proof that a puzzle game can send you out to the open web and back, it works, and the ending earns the trip. As a full game, it stops just as it gets going. Both of those are true at once, and at this price the first one is the part that decides it. Whatever KASTEN builds on this foundation is the thing worth waiting for.

The Facts

Three years after its release, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom still sits at a 96 on Metacritic and a 95 on OpenCritic, where 97% of critics recommend it. Those numbers don’t move much. What has changed is the conversation around the game — the initial flood of perfect scores has settled into something more considered, and the question now isn’t “is it good?” but “is it actually better than Breath of the Wild, and is it still worth picking up in 2026?” Both answers are yes.

What Is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom?

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TotK) is a 2023 open-world action-adventure game developed by Nintendo EPD and published by Nintendo for the Switch. It is the 20th mainline entry in the Zelda franchise and a direct sequel to 2017’s Breath of the Wild — a structural rarity for a series that historically starts fresh with each installment. Directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi and produced by longtime Zelda steward Eiji Aonuma, it launched worldwide on May 12, 2023 at a US$70 price point — Nintendo’s first internally developed game at that price. An enhanced Nintendo Switch 2 Edition followed on June 5, 2025, adding higher resolution, an improved frame-rate cap, HDR support, faster load times and integration with the ZELDA NOTES companion feature.

If you want the short version: this is a rare game where the critical consensus and the commercial result agree with each other completely. It sold over 10 million copies in its first three days — the fastest-selling Zelda ever — and has reached 22.4 million lifetime sales as of December 2025, making it the eighth best-selling Nintendo Switch game of all time.

For a deeper look at where TotK fits among the best games on Nintendo’s platform, our best Nintendo Switch games guide puts it in full context.

Story: A Real Sequel, Not Just More Hyrule

Tears of the Kingdom picks up some years after Breath of the Wild. Link and Princess Zelda are exploring a cavern beneath Hyrule Castle when they discover ancient murals, a poisonous substance called “gloom,” and a desiccated mummy restrained by a mysterious disembodied arm. The mummy — Ganondorf — awakens, shatters the Master Sword, wounds Link’s arm, and lifts Hyrule Castle into the sky. Zelda vanishes into the depths below. Link is rescued by the spirit of Rauru, an ancient Zonai king, who gives him a new mysterious arm as a replacement.

This opening event, the “Upheaval,” sets the entire game in motion. Sky islands appear above Hyrule, chasms tear open in the earth below, and gloom spreads across the land. Link’s quest has two interlocking threads: follow sightings of Zelda by collecting “Dragon’s Tears” memories scattered across Hyrule, and fight through the four regional crises Ganondorf has engineered to claim the kingdom. The story is far more present and emotionally ambitious than Breath of the Wild’s, with a genuine payoff that most players and critics found unexpectedly moving. It can still be experienced largely in any order — this is an open-world Zelda, not a linear one — but the narrative has real momentum in a way BotW’s memory-fragment structure never quite achieved.

Setting: A Familiar Map, Made New

TotK reuses the same surface map as Breath of the Wild, which is either its cleverest move or its most frustrating depending on your perspective. The geography has been meaningfully reshaped — the Upheaval has altered terrain, destroyed some areas and created new ones, and Hyrule Castle now floats dramatically above the central field — but returning players will recognize where they are throughout. The novelty comes from two entirely new vertical layers.

The Sky is a network of floating islands ranging from tiny puzzle platforms to large inhabited complexes, reached by launching from geysers or building flying machines. It holds shrines, treasure, and bosses, and rewards patient aerial exploration.

The Depths is the bigger addition: a vast, pitch-black underground region that roughly mirrors the surface map in size, bringing TotK’s total explorable area to more than double Breath of the Wild’s. It is hostile territory — Brightbloom seeds and Lightroots provide the only illumination, gloom chips away at Link’s maximum hearts, and the oppressive atmosphere makes the surface feel comforting by contrast. It also holds the game’s most valuable rare materials and some of its best secrets.

The three-layer structure means that the Depths, the Surface and the Sky regularly interconnect: you can dive from a sky island, plummet through a surface chasm, and emerge somewhere entirely new. That vertical continuity is one of TotK’s defining design achievements, and it is something that genuinely could not have been built on older hardware.

The New Abilities: Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend, Recall

BotW’s Sheikah Slate runes are gone. In their place TotK gives Link five new powers through his Zonai arm, and they fundamentally change how every problem in the game is approached.

Ultrahand lets Link grab, move, and attach objects together. Combine it with Zonai devices — fans, wheels, rockets, flame emitters, batteries, cannons, springs, and more — and it becomes a full-blown vehicle and construction system. Players have built working tanks, biplanes, hot air balloons, and elaborate automated traps. This is the headline mechanic, and it spawned an entire ecosystem of shared creations that kept the community active for years after launch.

Fuse lets Link bond materials, weapons, and objects together to create stronger, stranger weapons. Attach a boulder to a stick and you have a hammer. Attach a rocket to a shield and you can launch yourself into the sky. Fuse is also Nintendo’s answer to weapon durability: instead of just losing a weapon when it breaks, you can fuse new parts onto it continuously, creating chains of improvised upgrades that make the system feel generative rather than punishing.

Ascend lets Link swim upward through any solid ceiling, emerging on the surface above. It is the single most elegant traversal tool in the game — instantly enabling shortcuts through caves, dungeons and mountain faces that would otherwise require climbing.

Recall rewinds the movement of a single object. Use it on a falling rock to ride it back up to a sky island. Use it on a moving platform to reverse its path. It sounds simple and becomes genuinely deep in puzzle and combat contexts.

Autobuild (unlocked mid-game) instantly recreates previously built Ultrahand designs, spending a resource called zonaite to fabricate any missing parts. It effectively gives you a saved library of your own engineering work.

Together these abilities turn Hyrule into a physics playground. As OpenCritic’s critic consensus put it: “Nearly every encounter, whether puzzle, traversal, or combat, must be reconsidered. It makes you think in new ways.”

Combat: Expanded, More Dangerous

Combat builds on BotW’s foundations — Flurry Rush dodges, shield parries, and elemental interactions all return — but TotK is more dangerous and more varied. The Fuse system means your loadout is defined by what you build rather than what you find, and managing materials becomes a minor meta-game of its own.

The enemy roster is meaningfully larger than Breath of the Wild’s and considerably more interesting. New threats include Gloom Hands — a fast, multi-fingered horror that punishes players with permanent heart loss and spawns a Phantom Ganon variant if defeated — and three new elite enemy types: the multi-headed elemental Gleeoks, the shape-shifting geometric Flux Constructs, and the enormous underground Frox. Returning enemies like Lynels are not going anywhere. And the climactic multi-phase Ganondorf encounter is widely considered the best final boss in the series — something critics and players agree on with unusual unanimity.

Shrines, Dungeons and Structure

TotK has 152 Shrines across the Surface (120) and Sky (32), up from Breath of the Wild’s 120. Each yields a Light of Blessing: four exchange for a heart container or stamina upgrade at a Goddess Statue, and clearing all 152 unlocks the Ancient Hero’s Aspect armor set. In the Depths, 120 Lightroots mirror the surface shrines for fast travel and illumination, bringing the total shrine-and-lightroot count to 272 objectives — a substantial increase in structured content.

More importantly, TotK addresses what was the most consistent criticism of Breath of the Wild: the Divine Beasts were interesting but felt like disconnected floating puzzles rather than proper dungeons. The four main temples in TotK — Wind, Fire, Water and Lightning — each have a distinct regional theme and aesthetic, require you to understand their structure to progress, feature a named sage companion with a unique ability, and end with a proper boss fight. They’re not as sprawling as classic Zelda dungeons, but they’re a genuine step forward, and they restore some of the sense that the world’s major threats must be engaged directly rather than merely cleared.

Performance on Nintendo Switch

TotK targets 30fps and achieves it most of the time. After a day-one patch, Digital Foundry’s analysis reported the game “holds very closely to the 30fps target” across most scenarios, with notable drops occurring primarily when first activating Ultrahand in physics-heavy builds, and in densely populated areas like Kakariko Village. Frame-rate analysis showed most drops settling around 20fps briefly rather than sustained degradation.

SkillUp called the performance “a technological miracle” for what the hardware achieves. The 30fps ceiling remains the game’s most consistent critical complaint. The file size is 16.3 GB — up from Breath of the Wild’s 14.4 GB — which matters if you’re managing Switch storage. If that’s a concern, our guide to the best SD cards for Nintendo Switch covers the options.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition improves the experience meaningfully: higher resolution via a better upscaling pipeline, improved frame-rate cap, HDR support, and faster load times make it the definitive way to play if you have the hardware. On the original Switch, the game is still excellent — just accept the 30fps ceiling and occasional dips.

Music and Sound Design

TotK builds on Breath of the Wild’s sparse, piano-led ambient score but is more confident and varied. The Sky islands lean on breathy woodwinds and saxophone. The Surface retains the region-by-region ambient evolution of BotW. The Depths abandon melody almost entirely for dissonant, industrial drone — effective in creating dread. Dynamic battle music strips down and swells in response to combat state in a way that becomes genuinely exciting at higher difficulty levels.

The full original soundtrack — composed by Manaka Kataoka, Maasa Miyoshi, Masato Ohashi and Tsukasa Usui — was released physically in Japan by Nippon Columbia on July 31, 2024 (a nine-disc set, 344 tracks, approximately 11 hours of music) and made available for worldwide streaming through the Nintendo Music app from June 3, 2025. Critics broadly praised it, with particular attention paid to the emotional use of Zelda’s recurring leitmotif in the story’s closing sequences.

How Long Is Tears of the Kingdom?

Based on HowLongToBeat community data:

• Main story only: ~59 hours
• Main story + side content: ~109 hours
• Full 100% completion: ~224 hours

VideoGamer puts the story closer to 50–70 hours depending on difficulty and how much side content you pick up naturally. A Korok-seed completionist run (all 1,000 seeds) adds dozens of hours on top of that. There is no post-game in the conventional sense — the world continues after the credits with remaining objectives intact.

Replayability is primarily driven by Ultrahand’s creative potential, which remains fresh across multiple playthroughs because players invent new approaches rather than following a fixed solution set.

Tears of the Kingdom vs Breath of the Wild: Which Is Better?

The critical consensus is clear: Tears of the Kingdom is the better game. IGN’s Tom Marks called it a game that improves on Breath of the Wild “in nearly every way.” GameSpot’s Steve Watts gave it a 10/10. Game Informer’s Kyle Hilliard scored it 9.8/10.

The only consistent argument for Breath of the Wild is novelty. Returning players know this Hyrule already — the Surface is familiar, and the first-discovery wonder of BotW’s debut is unrepeatable. Game Informer captured it well: he “didn’t get the same goosebumps exploring Hyrule as I did in the past,” even while he “adored returning with all new tools.” If you never played BotW, that comparison is irrelevant — TotK is simply the richer, more feature-complete experience.

TotK has proper dungeons. TotK has a real story. TotK has a combat toolkit and enemy roster that holds up across its full 100+ hours. On nearly every axis where players criticized Breath of the Wild, TotK delivers a direct improvement. The Depths and the Sky add genuine new territory. The Sage abilities and temples restore some classic Zelda structure without removing the open-world freedom.

Our verdict: Tears of the Kingdom is the better game and the better starting point for anyone new to this era of Zelda. For those who adored BotW, it will not recreate that first feeling — nothing could — but it builds on it substantially.

What Critics Said: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Reviews

The game holds a 96/100 on Metacritic and a 95 on OpenCritic, where it earned the “Mighty” badge reserved for the top tier of all reviewed games. At launch it briefly registered as the highest-rated game in OpenCritic’s history. A representative selection of reviews:

IGN — 10/10 (Tom Marks): “An unfathomable follow-up to one of the greatest games ever made, somehow improving upon it in nearly every way.”

GameSpot — 10/10 (Steve Watts): “Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a canvas for your own creativity, a book to write your own stories, a world to create your own legends.”

Game Informer — 9.8/10 (Kyle Hilliard): “They say you can never go home again, but I adored returning to Hyrule with all new tools.”

Eurogamer — 4/5 (Edwin Evans-Thirlwell): “A terrific Breath of the Wild follow-up with some brilliant new systems, amazing views and more dungeon-type spaces.” The “5” critique: “a slightly deadening emphasis on gathering resources.”

The lone strong dissenter was Gfinity’s Josh Brown, whose 6/10 review drew considerable community backlash — and sparked a healthy conversation about whether unanimous praise at launch ever serves players well. His core criticism was that TotK is iterative rather than transformative. It’s a fair point. It doesn’t change the outcome.

Any DLC or Post-Launch Content?

Unlike Breath of the Wild, which received two paid story DLC packs, Tears of the Kingdom has not had paid downloadable content. Aonuma indicated in post-launch interviews that the team felt it had built everything it intended into the base game and was not planning a direct sequel set in the same world. The game received free patches improving performance and fixing exploits, and the paid Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade (June 5, 2025) is the major post-launch addition. A spin-off, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, released November 6, 2025 exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2, expanding the TotK-era story in a different direction.

Looking ahead, fans have begun discussing what form the next mainline Zelda will take — and the recent June 2026 Nintendo announcement of an Ocarina of Time remake for Nintendo Switch 2 suggests the company is actively revisiting the franchise’s past while TotK’s creative team presumably works on whatever comes next.

Should You Buy Tears of the Kingdom in 2026?

Yes — without reservation, if you own a Nintendo Switch or Switch 2. At this point in its lifecycle, TotK has a stable price, all post-launch patches applied, and a guide ecosystem mature enough to answer any question you’ll encounter. The creative ceiling of Ultrahand has barely been reached by the community, let alone exhausted by any individual player.

If you have not yet played either open-world Zelda: start here. If you played and loved Breath of the Wild: this is the version that addresses almost every criticism of that game, at the cost of some novelty. If the 30fps frame rate on original Switch hardware concerns you: the Switch 2 Edition removes that as a significant issue.

The only honest argument for skipping it is if weapon durability is an absolute dealbreaker — the mechanic returns, though Fuse transforms how you interact with it — or if you specifically want the tighter, dungeon-linear Zelda experience rather than a vast physics sandbox. For everyone else, this is the best game on Nintendo’s platform and one of the best of its decade.

See our best Nintendo Switch exclusives list and our full reviews archive for what else is worth your time on Nintendo hardware.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom FAQ

What is the Metacritic score for Tears of the Kingdom? 96/100 on Metacritic and 95 on OpenCritic, where 97% of critics recommend it.

Is Tears of the Kingdom better than Breath of the Wild? Yes, by most measures — proper dungeons, a stronger story, expanded enemy variety, and double the explorable space. The only thing BotW has that TotK cannot replicate is the novelty of its own debut.

How long does it take to beat Tears of the Kingdom? Around 50–70 hours for the main story, ~109 hours for a balanced playthrough, and ~224 hours for 100% completion.

Does Tears of the Kingdom have DLC? No paid story DLC. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition (June 2025) is a hardware-specific upgrade, not new content.

Is there a Tears of the Kingdom PC version? No official PC release. The game is Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive.

Do I need to play Breath of the Wild first? No — TotK is a standalone experience. Playing BotW first adds emotional context for the returning world, but nothing in TotK requires prior Zelda knowledge.

How many shrines are in Tears of the Kingdom? 152 shrines: 120 on the Surface and 32 in the Sky. There are also 120 Lightroots in the Depths for fast travel, for a total of 272 objectives.

Is it worth buying on original Switch vs Switch 2? It is excellent on original Switch after its performance patch. The Switch 2 Edition runs at better resolution and frame rate, so if you have the hardware, that is the better version.

Our Score: 9 / 10

Ghost of Yotei is the standalone PS5 sequel to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima that fans have been waiting for since Jin Sakai’s story ended. It scored 87 on Metacritic, sold over 3.3 million copies in its first 31 days, and won Adventure Game of the Year at the 29th D.I.C.E. Awards on February 12, 2026. If you own a PS5 and liked Ghost of Tsushima, stop reading and go buy it. If you want to know exactly why — and what its real limitations are — read on.

One thing to clear up immediately: Ghost of Yotei is currently PS5-exclusive and will likely stay that way. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported in March 2026 that Sony cancelled the PC port that Nixxes had brought to an “extremely far along” state, as part of a broader retreat from releasing single-player AAA games on PC. More on that below.

What Is Ghost of Yotei?

Ghost of Yotei is a 2025 action-adventure game developed by Sucker Punch Productions — the Seattle studio behind Infamous: Second Son and Ghost of Tsushima — and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is a standalone sequel set 329 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima, in a completely different region of Japan with a new protagonist. No prior knowledge of the first game is required.

The game is set in 1603 Ezo — the wild, snow-covered northern frontier that is now Hokkaido — at the dawn of the Edo period, three years after the Battle of Sekigahara. This is the exact year Tokugawa Ieyasu was named shogun, and central authority had not yet reached Ezo. Displaced rōnin, Ainu communities, and rival clans fill the vacuum. It is a far rawer, more frontier-feeling world than Tsushima’s occupied island, and Sucker Punch makes excellent use of that contrast.

Many people search for “ghost of tsushima 2” expecting to find this game — and they’re essentially right. Ghost of Yōtei is Ghost of Tsushima 2 in every meaningful way, even if Sucker Punch deliberately avoided that subtitle.

Ghost of Yōtei Release Date and Platform

The Ghost of Yōtei release date was October 2, 2025, exclusively on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. The game launched with PS5 Pro enhancements from day one and received a patch adding New Game+ in late November 2025. The free Ghost of Yōtei: Legends co-op mode followed on March 10, 2026.

If you are asking when does Ghost of Yōtei come out on PC — it doesn’t, and right now there is no indication it will. Sony cancelled the Nixxes-developed PC version as part of a strategy shift confirmed in March 2026. Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut came to PC in May 2024, but Yōtei appears to be a permanent PS5 exclusive for the foreseeable future.

Story: Atsu and the Yōtei Six

The story begins sixteen years before the game opens. On what survivors call the “Night of the Burning Tree,” a renegade samurai lord named Saitō and his band of outlaws — the Yōtei Six — slaughtered Atsu’s family at their ancestral home. Young Atsu was pinned to a sacred ginkgo tree with her father’s katana, the Wolf Blade, and left to burn. She survived, spent years fighting as a mercenary, and now returns to Ezo with a bloodied sash listing six names.

The player controls Atsu, voiced by Erika Ishii (English) and Fairouz Ai (Japanese). She is one of the strongest protagonists in recent PlayStation history — where Ghost of Tsushima’s Jin Sakai struggled with stoic honor and the shame of becoming the Ghost, Atsu never wavers. She knows exactly what she is and what she came to do. That moral clarity makes her more compelling in practice, even if it sacrifices some of Jin’s internal conflict.

The Yōtei Six are: the Snake, the Kitsune, the Oni, the Spider, the Dragon, and Lord Saitō himself. Each controls a distinct region of Ezo, commands themed enemy types, and functions as a standalone boss arc. Saitō has declared himself “Shogun of the North” and is consolidating rōnin under his banner to claim Ezo before the Matsumae clan — loyal to the new Tokugawa government — can pacify it. Atsu’s personal revenge quest keeps colliding with this larger political war, and with the indigenous Ainu people caught in the middle.

The supporting cast — Hanbei the one-armed dual-katana master, Atsu’s surviving brother Jubei (now Lord Kitamori, a Matsumae officer), Oyuki, Kiku, and the wolf companion — gives the revenge framework real human stakes. The story is predictable in its broad strokes but deeply satisfying in its execution. IGN’s Michael Higham called it “a predictable but well-executed story” that works because of “a strong lead in Atsu as a vigilante who does not care about honor in her quest for revenge.”

When Does Ghost of Yōtei Take Place — and Why It Matters

Ghost of Yōtei takes place in 1603, at the dawn of the Edo period, specifically in Ezo (modern-day Hokkaido). This is 329 years after Ghost of Tsushima’s 1274 Mongol invasion setting, which is why the two games feel so tonally different despite sharing mechanics and a studio.

The 1603 setting is carefully chosen. The Tokugawa shogunate has just been established, but its authority barely reaches Ezo. The island is genuinely ungoverned frontier territory — a Japanese Wild West — where Ainu clans, Matsumae lords, and Saitō’s rogue army fight for dominance. Sucker Punch collaborated with Ainu cultural consultants throughout development, resulting in one of gaming’s most careful depictions of an indigenous people. Famitsu’s 38/40 panel specifically praised the portrayal.

How Many Chapters Are in Ghost of Yōtei?

Ghost of Yōtei is structured into three main acts bookended by a prologue (killing the Snake as a tutorial) and a climactic finale duel with Lord Saitō. Most players and guides refer to these as “chapters,” though the game itself labels them as acts. Across the three acts there are approximately 10 main story missions — the three long act-defining hunts for the Oni, Kitsune, and the Saitō Brothers (Spider and Dragon), plus shorter connective quests.

Crucially, you can hunt the Yōtei Six in any order — except for the Snake (always first) and Saitō (always last). It is a deliberately non-linear structure inspired by Shadow of the Colossus and Kill Bill. The game leans into the cinematic reference hard: Atsu’s sash-list is visually lifted straight from Kill Bill’s death list, and the chapter-hunt structure maps directly onto Tarantino’s revenge arc. Whether you find that homage charming or derivative depends on your appetite for influence.

How Long Is Ghost of Yōtei?

How long is Ghost of Yōtei varies considerably by playstyle:

• Critical path (Casual or Medium difficulty): 20–25 hours
• Balanced playthrough (story + selected side missions): 30–45 hours
• Heavy completionist run: 50–65 hours
• Platinum trophy / full 100%: 65–80+ hours
• Hard or Lethal difficulty: add roughly 10–15 hours on any route above

This makes Ghost of Yōtei one of the more disciplined open-world games in Sony’s recent portfolio. It is roughly on par with Ghost of Tsushima rather than inflated like some contemporaries. A New Game+ mode was added in a free patch in late November 2025, allowing replays of Challenge Missions and Duels with carried-over progression.

Combat: Five Weapons, One Wolf, No Stances

This is where Ghost of Yōtei makes its boldest break from its predecessor. Creative director Nate Fox confirmed that the four-stance katana system from Ghost of Tsushima has been scrapped entirely. In its place is a five-weapon system — each weapon unlocked through a dedicated weapons master and tuned to specific enemy types:

• Katana — Atsu’s starting weapon, versatile and balanced, strongest against swordsmen
• Dual katana — unlocked through a memorable arc with Hanbei; brilliant for crowd control
• Ōdachi — two-handed greatsword built to break heavily armored brutes
• Yari (spear) — long reach, launches enemies, dominates dual-wielders
• Kusarigama — chain-sickle; hooks shield-bearers and yanks them off balance; the most unique tool in the kit

Each weapon has a deep upgrade tree and its own parry timing. Add to that two bow types (hankyu and yumi) and historically accurate matchlock firearms — the tanegashima rifle and tanzutsu pistol — and Ghost of Yōtei has the most varied combat sandbox Sucker Punch has ever built.

New in combat: disarming attacks work both ways — Atsu can disarm enemies, and enemies with the right skills can disarm her. You can snatch a fallen enemy’s blade mid-fight and throw it back. Atsu can also whistle for her wolf companion, who joins her in both open combat and stealth sequences.

The verdict on combat is almost uniformly excellent. XDA Developers called it “the best combat ever seen in a samurai game.” The one significant criticism comes from Gideon’s Gaming, which flags that the weapon-counter system on Hard or Lethal difficulty becomes “very rock-paper-scissors” — clunky to switch weapons mid-fight while managing the stagger bonuses from correct match-ups. It is the game’s most legitimate design complaint, and it is more noticeable the harder you play.

Stealth and Open World Exploration

Stealth returns as a full pillar of gameplay — Ghost of Yōtei is not action-only. Enemies no longer share a psychic alarm: clearing one section of an outpost doesn’t always alert the entire camp. Standoff and showdown openings carry over from Tsushima, letting you open fights with quick-time chain kills before formal combat begins.

The open world is denser than Ghost of Tsushima’s rather than larger, organized into distinct biomes: the Yōtei Grasslands, the Ishikari Plain, the Tokachi Range, and the Oshima Coast. Each has its own weather patterns, color palette, faction politics, and seasonal cosmetics. Dynamic weather — drawing from the real climate around Hokkaido’s Mount Yōtei — brings snow, heavy rain, and full aurora borealis displays, all of which interact with combat visibility and enemy detection.

Side activities are where Sucker Punch’s polish really earns its keep:

• Sumi-e painting replaces haiku composition, with players tracing brushstrokes via the DualSense touchpad. For anyone who’s owned a PS5 since launch and tracked the evolution of DualSense features, this is one of the more creative uses of the controller’s haptics in a first-party title.
• Zeni hajiki — an in-game coin-flicking gambling game, also included physically in the Collector’s Edition
• Shamisen songs alter the direction of the guiding wind mechanic
• Hot springs (onsen) for permanent health upgrades
• Bamboo strikes for spirit/resolve upgrades
• Fox dens and wolf dens for charm and skill rewards
• Altars of Reflection — new story-based meditative interludes
• Bounty hunts — a major new pillar; paid contracts across Ezo
• Weapon mastery quests — unlock new techniques from each weapons master
• Atsu’s camp — cook for stat boosts, craft ammo, trade with vendors

The Wolf Pack — Atsu’s gradually-recruited band of side characters — connects side missions to the main narrative more cohesively than Tsushima managed. Most reviewers agree: side quests feel like story content, not filler.

Three visual modes are available: Kurosawa Mode (black-and-white, film-grain) returns from Tsushima, joined by Miike Mode (grindhouse-bloody, inspired by Takashi Miike) and Watanabe Mode (lo-fi cinematic aesthetic inspired by Shinichirō Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop). All three are free and available from launch.

Ghost of Yōtei PS5 Performance: Which Mode to Choose

Ghost of Yōtei PS5 and PS5 Pro both support four distinct graphics modes — one of the most granular options menus Sucker Punch has offered:

• Quality Mode — 4K upscaled from 1440p on base PS5, locked 30fps. Sharpest image, best for screenshots and photo mode.
• Performance Mode — Dynamic 1440p (upscaled from 1080p on base PS5), 60fps. The recommended mode on standard PS5 hardware.
• Ray Tracing Mode — Ray-traced shadows and global illumination at 30fps. First RT implementation in Sucker Punch history. Available on both PS5 and PS5 Pro.
• Ray Tracing Pro Mode — PS5 Pro exclusive. RT at 60fps via PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) upscaling. Universally considered the definitive way to play.

VRR is supported, HDR10 is implemented with per-scene tone mapping, and the DualSense haptics map to katana strikes, parries, weapon weight, and stamina state. Push Square called it “the best use of haptic feedback since Returnal.”

If you have a standard PS5, play on Performance Mode. If you have a PS5 Pro, Ray Tracing Pro is the mode this game was built for. The generational difference in image quality between standard PS5 Quality Mode and PS5 Pro Ray Tracing Pro Mode is genuinely striking — one of the clearer arguments for the Pro hardware to date. For a deeper look at how PS5 hardware differences affect first-party game quality, our PS5 vs PS4 performance breakdown covers the generational gap in detail.

Will Ghost of Yōtei Be on PC?

No — not currently, and not in the foreseeable future.

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut launched on PC on May 16, 2024 via Nixxes Software, and every signal pointed to Ghost of Yōtei following the same path. Nixxes had reportedly brought a PC port to an “extremely far along” state, with a Q2 2026 target.

Then, on March 4, 2026, Bloomberg reported that Sony cancelled the port as part of a broader pullback from releasing single-player AAA titles on PC. PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst confirmed the policy shift to staff in a May 2026 town hall. Sony will continue releasing multiplayer and live-service titles (Marathon, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls) on PC, but Ghost of Yōtei joins the category of PS5-exclusive single-player games Sony is no longer porting.

This is directly connected to the broader question of Sony’s first-party strategy and its willingness to leverage exclusivity as a PS5 hardware driver, particularly after the costly lessons of the Bungie acquisition. The short version: if you want to play Ghost of Yōtei, you need a PS5. That is unlikely to change.

Ghost of Yōtei Collector’s Edition: What You Get

The Ghost of Yōtei Collector’s Edition is priced at $249.99 / £219.99 and is a PS Direct exclusive. It contains:

• Digital download code for Ghost of Yōtei (no physical disc)
• Full Digital Deluxe in-game contents: armor set, armor dye, horse and saddle, sword kit, charm, early Traveler’s Maps
• A 6.8″ resin Ghost mask (Atsu’s mask) with display stand
• A 3″ cast-metal tsuba (sword guard) with display stand
• A 71-inch cotton-blend sash hand-printed with the names of the Yōtei Six
• A papercraft ginkgo tree referencing the Night of the Burning Tree
• Four 5×7 art cards
• A pouch of real zeni hajiki coins for the in-game minigame

You can order it directly from the PlayStation Direct Collector’s Edition page.

The controversy: there is no physical disc. For $250 you receive a download code in a high-quality wooden box. The physical pieces are genuinely well-made — the mask in particular is display-worthy — but the disc-less Collector’s Edition has frustrated physical-media collectors across the industry. Consider yourself warned before ordering.

Two limited-edition PS5 console bundles also launched alongside the game: the globally-available Gold Kintsugi PS5 and the PS Direct-exclusive Sumi-e Ink Brush PS5, plus a Ghost of Yōtei DualSense controller. The Standard Edition ($69.99) and Digital Deluxe ($79.99) round out the lineup.

Ghost of Yōtei: Legends (Free Co-op Mode)

The base game is single-player only. But on March 10, 2026, Sucker Punch released Ghost of Yōtei: Legends as a free update — a successor to Ghost of Tsushima’s surprisingly popular Legends co-op mode.

Legends features two-player story missions based on Japanese mythology, a four-player survival/horde mode against supernatural versions of the Yōtei Six, and four distinct player classes with separate gear progression. Early critic scores are positive: 86 from Game8, 85 from Uagna.it, and 80 from GamingBolt. The main criticism is that it iterates on Tsushima’s Legends rather than reinventing it. As a free post-launch addition, though, it is solid value for existing owners.

Critical Reception: What the Reviews Say

Ghost of Yōtei holds an 87 on Metacritic from 102+ critics and an 89 on OpenCritic with 94% recommending it — earning the “Mighty” badge that fewer than 2% of all games receive. It scored 38/40 from Famitsu (9/10/10/9) — the highest Famitsu score in Sucker Punch’s history.

A representative spread of verdicts:

IGN — 9/10 (Michael Higham, Sept. 25, 2025): A gorgeous, satisfying open-world samurai game with “a strong lead in Atsu” and “an expanded weapon-set that elevates the gameplay principles set by Tsushima.”

Famitsu — 38/40: Highest Sucker Punch score ever from the Japanese panel, with specific praise for the respectful portrayal of Ainu culture.

XDA Developers: Called the combat “the best ever seen in a samurai game.”

Push Square: “An instant classic and brilliant from start to finish.” Also called the DualSense haptics “the best since Returnal.”

The Punished Backlog (Sam Martinelli, Oct. 15, 2025): “Despite my sincere enjoyment of Ghost of Yōtei, I genuinely hope it’s the last of its kind, at least for a while” — a constructive critique of open-world genre fatigue rather than the game itself.

Gideon’s Gaming: “A perfectly adequate sequel experience” with a weapon-counter system that is “very gamey and arbitrary” on higher difficulty settings.

Digitally Downloaded (Matt Sainsbury): The strongest dissenting voice, arguing the game’s portrayal of Ainu culture is “revoltingly patronising” and treats Ezo as “an all-American Wild West story” in Japanese clothes.

The game won Adventure Game of the Year at the 29th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards on February 12, 2026, plus Outstanding Achievement in Character (Atsu / Erika Ishii) and Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition. It was nominated for eight D.I.C.E. awards — tied with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for most-nominated — but lost Game of the Year to Clair Obscur.

Controversy and Community Reception

Two controversies surrounded Ghost of Yōtei’s launch window:

The Drew Harrison incident (September 2025): A Sucker Punch developer posted a politically charged joke on Bluesky that went viral. Co-founder Brian Fleming condemned it, Sony confirmed Harrison had left the studio, and the incident triggered coordinated review-bombing threats in the weeks before release.

The female protagonist backlash: A subset of online critics objected to a female lead and to Erika Ishii’s social media history, generating further review-bombing. The result is visible on Metacritic: the critic average of 87 contrasts sharply with deflated user scores driven by bad-faith submissions.

Community reception among actual players has been overwhelmingly positive. r/ghostofyotei and r/PS5 treated the game as an automatic Game of the Year contender on launch. The most common real complaint from engaged players — as opposed to review-bombers — is that the structure is “Ghost of Tsushima but more polished,” which reads differently depending on how you feel about the formula.

Ghost of Yōtei vs Ghost of Tsushima: Which Is Better?

This is the question every “ghost of tsushima 2” search eventually lands on. The honest answer is: Ghost of Yōtei is the better game in almost every measurable category, but Ghost of Tsushima may remain the more memorable experience for many players.

Ghost of Yōtei does these things better:

• More weapon variety and greater combat depth
• Denser, more varied open world with genuine biome identity
• Stronger protagonist — most reviewers prefer Atsu’s clarity to Jin’s stoicism
• Better side content with genuine narrative payoff
• More polished PS5-native visuals, dynamic weather, ray tracing
• Modern quality-of-life systems baked in from launch

Ghost of Tsushima still has these advantages:

• The novelty of the 2020 debut — nothing beats a first impression
• A sharper internal moral conflict (honor vs. the Ghost)
• The Iki Island expansion remains exceptional standalone content
• Already on PC for those without a PS5

If you have never played either game and own a PS5, start with Ghost of Yōtei — it is the more refined entry point and requires no prior context from Tsushima. If you already played and loved Tsushima, Ghost of Yōtei is exactly what you want from a sequel: familiar at its core, better in almost every detail.

Ghost of Yōtei Review Verdict: Is It Worth Buying?

Yes — for anyone with a PS5 or PS5 Pro who enjoys cinematic action-adventure games, Ghost of Yōtei is one of the cleanest recommendations on the platform. It sold 3.3 million copies in 31 days, won D.I.C.E. Adventure Game of the Year, and delivers exactly what it promises: a gorgeous, mechanically satisfying open-world samurai game with a compelling lead and a world worth exploring for 40–60 hours.

The caveats are real but manageable. The weapon-counter system on high difficulty settings feels gamey rather than organic. The Yōtei Six structure is less non-linear than the marketing implied. The Collector’s Edition, at $249.99 with no disc, is steep for what is ultimately a download code in a box. And the PC port is cancelled — Sucker Punch’s PlayStation-first strategy, familiar to anyone watching Sony’s broader moves, means Ghost of Yōtei is a PS5 purchase or nothing.

None of those caveats outweigh what Ghost of Yōtei gets right. For PS5 owners, this is a straightforward buy. Pick up the Standard Edition at PlayStation and go in unspoiled.

For more PlayStation coverage, check out our PlayStation section and our full reviews archive.

Ghost of Yōtei FAQ

What is Ghost of Yōtei? A standalone PS5 action-adventure sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, set in 1603 Ezo (Hokkaido) with a new protagonist, Atsu.

When did Ghost of Yōtei come out? October 2, 2025, exclusively on PlayStation 5.

Will Ghost of Yōtei be on PC? No. Sony cancelled the PC port in early 2026 per Bloomberg reporting. No PC release is currently planned.

How long is Ghost of Yōtei? Around 20–25 hours for the main story, 30–45 hours for a balanced playthrough, and 65–80+ hours for the Platinum trophy.

How many chapters does Ghost of Yōtei have? Three main acts plus a prologue and finale, totaling approximately 10 main story missions.

What is the Ghost of Yōtei Metacritic score? 87 from 102+ critics. 89 on OpenCritic with 94% recommending.

Does Ghost of Yōtei have multiplayer? Yes — Ghost of Yōtei: Legends, a free 1–4 player co-op mode, launched on March 10, 2026.

What comes in the Ghost of Yōtei Collector’s Edition? A $249.99 PS Direct exclusive with a Ghost mask, tsuba, sash, papercraft ginkgo tree, art cards, zeni hajiki coins, and a Digital Deluxe code — but no physical disc.

Is Ghost of Yōtei better than Ghost of Tsushima? By most measurable metrics, yes. Better combat, stronger protagonist, denser world, and better side content. But many players still hold the original’s novelty factor above the sequel’s refinement.

Do I need to play Ghost of Tsushima before Ghost of Yōtei? No. Ghost of Yōtei is a standalone sequel with no shared characters or required story context.

Quick Verdict

Current status: as of October 16, 2026, the R6 Marketplace remains closed. Ubisoft’s June 30 statement is the latest official status located for this update and gives no return date. When the service is available, it uses R6 Credits, automated order matching and a 10% seller fee. Treat reopening dates from trackers or community posts as unconfirmed unless Ubisoft publishes them.

What Is the R6 Marketplace?

The R6 Marketplace is Rainbow Six Siege’s version of the Steam Community Market, but it is walled off from real money. It is fully operated by Ubisoft, governed by official pricing rules, eligibility lists, and transaction fees. Every trade runs through Ubisoft’s system and executes automatically when buyer and seller orders match. Credits cannot be cashed out for fiat currency. Credits earned from a sale stay locked inside your Ubisoft Connect wallet, where they can be spent on store items, battle passes, or further marketplace bids.

Ubisoft introduced Marketplace trading in beta during Operation Deep Freeze in November 2023. The official season history places the full release in Operation New Blood in June 2024. Siege X arrived on June 10, 2025, but it was not the Marketplace launch.

If you’re playing on current-gen hardware, our Rainbow Six Siege PS4 vs PS5 breakdown is worth reading alongside this guide, since platform matters for how you access the Marketplace browser interface.

Is the R6 Marketplace Down Right Now? (October 2026 Status)

Yes. Trading is currently unavailable. Ubisoft’s June 30 update said the company was rebalancing the economy and rebuilding key foundations before Marketplace could return. Ubisoft did not publish a reopening date.

An earlier January 30, 2026 Player Protection update said the work was expected to take several months. Ubisoft’s June 30 follow-up superseded that estimate and said Marketplace would remain closed. The official roadmap does not give a relaunch date.

What Happened in December 2025: The Breach Explained

On December 27, 2025, Ubisoft took Rainbow Six Siege offline after what it later described as a breach affecting the game’s economy. The incident prompted recovery work and a wider security review.

In its January 30 Player Protection update, Ubisoft said it had restored player inventories and strengthened protections. Ubisoft did not publish a technical exploit method, so third-party explanations should not be treated as confirmed.

Ubisoft said the breach did not compromise personal data or the game’s source code. It also announced app-based two-factor authentication for Marketplace access and said the trading service would remain unavailable while security and economic systems were rebuilt.

When Is the R6 Marketplace Coming Back?

Ubisoft has not set a return date. Any specific season or launch window should be treated as unconfirmed until it appears in an official Ubisoft announcement.

For a future reopening, rely on Ubisoft’s news feed and the official Rainbow Six account.

Watch the official Rainbow Six Siege news page and the @Rainbow6Game account on X. Those are the first places any reopening announcement will land.

How the R6 Marketplace Works

The R6 Marketplace uses an order-book matching system similar to a stock exchange. Buyers post the maximum price they will pay, sellers post the minimum they will accept, and Ubisoft’s engine automatically matches the lowest available ask against the highest available bid. When prices cross, the trade executes instantly.

How to Buy Items on the R6 Marketplace

Ubisoft’s official buying guide covers the full process. The steps are listed below.

1. Open the Buy tab on the Marketplace homepage and browse by category or search for a specific cosmetic.
2. Review the item page; last sold price, current asks, and current bids are all visible.
3. Enter the maximum R6 Credits you are willing to pay and submit a purchase order.
4. The system finds the lowest matching seller. The trade completes at the seller’s price, not your ceiling; so you can never overpay against your own order.
5. The item appears in your in-game inventory within minutes, and your credits are deducted.

Active purchase orders are capped at five at a time and expire automatically after 30 days. You can cancel or adjust an unfilled order at any time.

How to Sell Items on the R6 Marketplace

For the full walkthrough, Ubisoft’s official selling guide has the step-by-step.

1. Open the Sell tab. Only eligible tradable items appear here.
2. Pick an item, review the order book for fair market value, and enter your minimum acceptable price.
3. The item is removed from your inventory and held in escrow while pending.
4. When a buyer’s bid meets your ask, the sale completes automatically. Credits hit your wallet immediately.

Like buy orders, you may hold up to five active sale orders, each lasting 30 days. Ubisoft retains a flat 10% fee on every completed sale; sell a skin for 1,000 R6 Credits and you receive 900.

The 10% Transaction Fee

The fee applies only to sellers. Buyers pay exactly the listed ask price with no additional charges. There is no withdrawal fee because credits remain inside the Ubisoft ecosystem permanently. Bake the 10% into every target sale price, or you risk selling at a net loss.

R6 Marketplace Eligibility Requirements

To trade, your account must meet all of the following; a full breakdown lives on Ubisoft’s official Marketplace info page:

• Clearance Level 25 in Rainbow Six Siege.
• App-based Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) active on your Ubisoft Connect account. Since the January 2026 Player Protection update, Ubisoft has signalled this will be mandatory at app level; SMS/email 2FA alone may not suffice at relaunch. Set it up now at account.ubisoft.com/security-settings.
• A verified recovery email and a Ubisoft account in good standing.
• No active bans or chargeback marks on the account.

If you see “You do not currently meet the requirements,” play one match to refresh your profile and confirm that 2FA and email verification are active.

Where to Access the R6 Marketplace

The former public Marketplace URL currently returns 404 while the service is closed. Check Ubisoft’s latest Marketplace status update and the official Siege news feed for a replacement URL or reopening notice.

R6 Credits: The Only Currency

Marketplace trades use R6 Credits. Credits from sales stay in the Ubisoft ecosystem and cannot be cashed out. Pack sizes and prices can change, so check Ubisoft’s current store before buying credits.

What You Can and Cannot Trade

Eligible categories include weapon skins (universal and operator-specific), operator uniforms and headgear, charms, attachment skins, drone skins, and operator card portraits. Items become tradable on a delayed schedule; current-season cosmetics are locked and only become tradable when the following season launches.

Items typically NOT tradable:

• Anything from the current active season.
• Certain DLC-exclusive bundles, including some Elite sets and crossover collaborations.
• Battle Pass items currently in their active season.
• Achievement and progression unlocks.
• Promotional or Twitch Drop items during their exclusivity window.

If an item you own does not appear in your Sell tab, it is not eligible at this time. Ubisoft has steadily expanded the eligibility list since launch.

There is also a 15-day re-sell cooldown after buying any item; you cannot flip it immediately. And the daily completed-order cap is 20 buys and 20 sells per rolling 24-hour window.

How Marketplace Prices Work

Players set buy and sell orders within Ubisoft’s allowed price range. Because the service remains closed, old tracker charts and pre-closure examples are historical and should not be treated as current quotes.

R6 Marketplace Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Officially supported and secure; no third-party scam risk when operational.
• Access to retired cosmetics like Black Ice and Glacier unavailable elsewhere.
• Automated order matching removes haggling and waiting rooms.
• You always pay the seller’s asking price, never your maximum bid.
• Cross-platform inventory sync through Ubisoft Connect (PC, PlayStation, Xbox).
• Reasonable 10% seller fee.

Cons:

• No fiat cash-out; credits and skins are locked inside Ubisoft’s ecosystem.
• Current-season items are non-tradable.
• Some Elite bundles and crossover skins are permanently excluded.
• No native console UI.
• High eligibility wall (Clearance Level 25, 2FA, season activity).
• Total dependence on Ubisoft uptime; the December 2025 breach proved how quickly trading can be paused.
• Offline since December 27, 2025.

Tips for Trading Smarter When It Reopens

1. Use the active order book. The “last sold” figure is a single data point. The active bid/ask spread shows where the market sits right now.

2. Avoid current-season items. They cannot be traded until the next season releases. List them at season rollover for best demand.

3. Factor the 10% fee into every sale. A skin bought for 200 credits and sold for 200 credits is a net loss of 20 credits.

4. Enable app-based 2FA before relaunch. It will be mandatory. Set it up at account.ubisoft.com/security-settings today and avoid the first-day rush.

5. Treat skins as purchases for personal use. R6 Credits and cosmetics have no realizable real-money value outside Ubisoft’s ecosystem. The December rollback showed that hoarding a large credit balance carries risk.

6. Stick to Ubisoft’s official service. Third-party “R6 trading” sites, account-share services and Discord traders are not Ubisoft’s Marketplace. While the service is closed, use the official Siege news feed to identify any future trading URL.

R6 Marketplace vs Third-Party Trading Sites

Ubisoft does not permit cross-account item transfers. Sites claiming to broker individual skin trades may instead offer whole accounts, which can violate Ubisoft’s terms. Use only a trading route that Ubisoft identifies as official.

What to Do While the R6 Marketplace Is Offline

To prepare for a possible return:

• Build inventory. Keep earning seasonal items, Battle Pass cosmetics, and Alpha Pack drops. Nothing disappears during downtime.
• Hit Clearance Level 25 and turn on app-based 2FA now so you are ready on day one.
• Don’t buy R6 Credits speculatively purely for flipping until a firm return date is confirmed.
• Follow official channels. The Rainbow Six Siege news hub and @Rainbow6Game on X are where announcements will appear first.

R6 Marketplace FAQ

Is the R6 Marketplace safe? Yes; when operational. Every trade is processed by Ubisoft’s infrastructure with no peer-to-peer interaction required. The December 2025 breach targeted Ubisoft’s backend systems.

Can I sell skins for real money? No. All transactions use R6 Credits, which cannot be cashed out.

What is the R6 Marketplace fee? A flat 10% on every completed sale, paid by the seller. Buyers pay no additional fee.

Why can’t I see some of my skins in the Sell tab? The item is either from the current season (locked until next season) or on Ubisoft’s non-tradable list (certain Elite bundles, crossover skins, achievement rewards).

Can console players use the R6 Marketplace? Yes, via a web browser logged into Ubisoft Connect. No native PlayStation or Xbox UI exists, but inventories sync automatically.

When will the R6 Marketplace come back online? No date has been set.

Will I lose my skins and credits while it’s offline? No. All cosmetics and credits remain tied to your account.

Is there an R6 Marketplace mobile app? No dedicated app exists. The site is fully responsive on mobile browsers.

How much is Black Ice on the R6 Marketplace? Pre-shutdown averages ranged from under 100 credits for less popular weapons to around 2,000 credits for Ash’s R4-C Black Ice. Prices will be volatile on relaunch.

What’s the difference between the R6 Marketplace and the in-game store? The in-game store sells new and current content at Ubisoft’s fixed prices. The R6 Marketplace lets players trade past-season items at prices set by supply and demand.

What we liked: Smaller footprint, ergonomics, weight, thinner bezels. It’s also much cooler to the touch than the original Switch.

What we didn’t like: Limited local multiplayer options, no Bluetooth support for headphones, some games can’t be played due to lack of TV output.

Score: 8/10

It was hard not to mention the Lite version of the console in our original Nintendo Switch 2019 review, not because my editor didn’t let me, but rather because they both serve a different purpose. So, for today we’re going to go over the differences of both consoles and I’m going to point you in to the right direction when it comes to the question; which Nintendo Switch version to buy?

Nintendo Switch Lite Review: Data Management

Powering on Nintendo Switch for the first time will lead you to accounts setup. After you create a profile and add a profile pic like my Luigi icon, you’ll need to set up or log in on a Nintendo account. You will want to do that to enjoy in 2021- things-to-do like downloading games from eShop or playing multiplayer games online.

If you buy Switch or Switch Lite for kids under 13, set up a children account and your parent or guardian so you can monitor or limit the content and playing time. Besides giant Super Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, and other Nintendo game selections, you can play great third-party games. Sport games buffs will need an EA account for Fifa, or 2K for NBA 2K games. Natural-born assassins should connect Uplay account for Assasins Creed. Some third-party games like Fortnite and Skyrim don’t need additional accounts linking.

What I advise is setting up two-factor authentication as company had a massive data breach in 2019 when hackers endangered more than 300,000 accounts. They exploited the same login credentials for Nintendo Network ID and Nintendo account, and this practice was discontinued since then. If you look at your game library as “your precious,” do turn on 2FA.

Nintendo Switch Lite Review: Why is it special?

To be upfront, the OG Switch 2017 and 2019 are here for those who are primarily couch potatoes, gamers that own a TV and want the full Nintendo Switch experience that comes with local multiplayer, streaming games to Twitch and enjoying all the Nintendo accessories out there.

The Lite version is more for the casual gamer, someone who wants to play on-the-go or  is about to experience the Nintendo magic for the first time. That person doesn’t have a dedicated gaming room with a TV, but rather likes to play from their own corner of the house. You don’t mind the lack of local multiplayer or accessorize, and Twitching doesn’t interest you. You just want to access the huge Nintendo library of games and start diving in to them, and with the Switch Lite you will get exactly that.

The essential thing for a handheld console is portability, and Lite excels in that regard. While it’s still a decent chunk of plastic, this time sturdy plastic with a matte finish that is not a fingerprint magnet and with better grip, the Lite is smaller and more portable. Depending on clothing, you can carry it around without a bag, which is hard to say for the original Switch.

In many ways, I found the Lite more convenient. Instead of detachable Joy-Cons, Lite comes with integrated controls on the console. Users had fewer complaints about drift issues than on the Joy-Cons. I feel the return of the classic D-Pad makes Lite a throwback to 2DS days. Old-school Nintendo gamers were not that enthusiastic about separate directional buttons on the original Switch, and right on celebrated when Lite model returned D-Pad. You might lose some precision in fighting games, but you’ll get a ton of nostalgia points with D-Pad, so I guess it’s fair to say, great job Nintendo.

It is also an excellent console for young ones. Let’s be honest, kids won’t pay close attention, so having sturdier built-in controllers without drift issues, fewer problems with flap-protected MicroSD card slot, and less movable parts make it better for little ones.

The price is another major selling point. You lose some features (more about that later), but the Lite comes with a $199 price tag. For $100 less, you can more or less play the same games. No docking option is the most significant difference compared with the Switch. Without docking, you won’t need some of the popular accessories, so the overall cost of ownership is a bit lower.

Nintendo Switch Lite vs. Nintendo Switch: Performance and Battery Life

Both Nintendo consoles pack the same NVIDIA Tegra custom chipset and the exact screen resolution of 720p. There is no noticeable difference in system performance between the two, other than there is no video output for higher resolution on the Lite. Nintendo didn’t make the Lite version less powerful but just stripped it from some options. While integrated controllers have the same layout with a clickable analog stick, four face buttons, two top buttons on the right side, and an L button, L stick on the left. The most noticeable difference is with the D-Pad instead of four directional buttons.

Built-in controllers don’t support motion controls or HD rumble. This limits the gaming options for original Switch games like 1-2 Switch, Super Mario Party, Nintendo Labo, or Just Dance. You might miss the HD Rumble feature, but I can live without occasional vibration, especially if it will give me additional minutes of play.

The battery life is a crucial feature for a handheld console. Refreshed Switch 2019 offers the best autonomy with 4.5 to almost 9 hours of playtime with its 4310 mAh battery and better optimization compared to the 2017 original that gave you 6.5 hours tops. I’ll take this three hours more any day. But what about the Lite version? It has a smaller 3750 mAh battery, but it comes between the 2017 and 2019 versions of the original bigger Switch, and you can get from 3 to 7 hours of battery life. Both consoles will need three hours to charge in sleep mode until they reach total capacity.

Nintendo Switch Lite vs. Nintendo Switch: Display Quality

The company has an illustrious past when it comes to handheld gaming consoles. GameBoy, Nintendo 3DS, and other major popular devices had devoted followers. Switch models have better performance and much better screens compared to previous consoles.

If you were frustrated with the TN display on 3DS, you could see the difference between newer IPS LCD and TN screens when it came on the same console. IPS delivers more punch, better color accuracy, and a much wider viewing angle.

Switch ditched the fast but poor-quality screens from the past. Both Switch consoles have the same IPS LCD screen, with the most noticeable difference in screen size. Lite version has 5.5″ compared to 6.2″ of the original. The resolution is the same, 1280×720, which is enough for screens smaller than with most smartphones today. Lite has thinner bezels around the display, which makes it slightly more immersive. It’s worth mentioning that Lite doesn’t have the auto-brightness option of the original. Both are not performing well in bright sun situations, but if you amp the brightness, you can roam with Zelda in the security of the shaded area. As a bonus, you won’t need sunscreen.

Nintendo Switch vs Nintendo Switch Lite: Software and Interface

One noticeable advantage of the smaller form factor in the Lite model is the better utilization of touchscreen. Browsing game library or more convenient way to build in Mario Maker 2. Other than the easier reach of the thumb for touch functionality, both consoles have practically the same user interface.

The UI is simple with menu options like friend lists, games, and eShop. The same settings panel includes Airplane Mode, Screen Brightness, Screen Lock, Parental Controls, Internet, Data Management, and others. You can take a screenshot or read Nintendo-related news. And while you can play multiplayer games on both consoles, local multiplayer is better suited on the original Switch.

Nintendo Switch Lite Review: Game Library

Handheld only version of the latest gaming system supports almost the entire game library, and you can game on the go AAA titles like The Legends of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, and other Super Mario, Pokemon, and other classic games.

I also played my weakness, the 2010 RPG masterpiece Skyrim. You can engage in Battle Royale frenzy with Fortnite, or Apex Legends, or play Minecraft or FIFA.

Without motion control and removable Joy-Cons, you won’t be able to play above mentioned Just Dance, Super Mario Party, and Ring Fit Adventure games.

However, Lite lets you play most of the Best Nintendo Switch Games, with limitations on the handheld mode. The price range is the same, starting from as low as $12.99, and going up as far as $59.99 for more exclusive titles, and the same goes when it comes multiplayer subscription rates (1-month $3.99, 3-months $7.99, 1-year $19.99).

Nintendo Switch Lite Review: Accessorize Compatibility

Just like the original, the Lite model doesn’t support Bluetooth audio connectivity, so you will have to buy a dongle to make it work with your earbuds or headphones. Most accessories you purchased for the original Switch will work with Lite. That means additional Joy-Cons, Pro Controller, and must-have MicroSD card can be used here too.

Naturally, the case and screen protector won’t fit because of the difference in size. With a scratch-friendly screen, I definitely recommend you buy screen protection, while the case for the Lite model is optional. We created a comprehensive list of the Best Nintendo Switch Accessories, and some of them are not compatible, but it goes without saying you can’t use Joy-Con stand if there are no Joy-Cons. On the other hand, since the Lite model doesn’t have a kickstand, you might look for one if you plan to play a local multiplayer with an additional Joy-Cons pair.

Can you connect the Switch Lite to a TV?

No! That is the short version. Nintendo removed the video output chip from the Lite motherboard. Lite also does not fit into a TV dock, nor it has any option of connecting to a big screen. What about USB to HDMI converter, dough? Well, it does not compute for this device, similarly like this Bluetooth-capable device does not allow wireless headphone connection.

The inability to connect with an external monitor led the fans to do some crazy s**t. YouTuber “My Mate VINCE” worked around the TV connecting problem with the help of a camera on a tripod above the console. He used camera’s feed and streamed it onto his TV, and like that he went on playing some local multiplayer with additional Joy-Con controllers.

But, on a more serious note, you can’t connect Lite, regardless of the adapters or external help, because, as I mentioned, there isn’t a video output chip under the plastic hub of the device.

Can you stream games to Twitch with your Nintendo Switch Lite?

Unfortunately, this is yet another no. But this time, there is a less crazy workaround if you’re keen on streaming Lite gameplay. Like with the TV output, Twitch streaming is not possible because it doesn’t fit in the dock, so it lacks the HDMI output needed to connect with the capture card.

You can get some video capturing equipment and optionally a microphone and setup filming and streaming your gameplay, but it’s way too much hassle. Look, just embrace you won’t be streaming your Zelda adventures.

Verdict

Switch Lite is the best portable gaming console in a long line of Nintendo’s finest products. It is the best choice for gamers that focus solely on the handheld experience, where it excels with the same visual quality and game selection (almost the same) and with much better ergonomics than Switch 2019. The lighter version makes gaming on the go better.

Switch 2019 has a beefier battery and can give you a couple of hours of extra gameplay. It also has a bigger screen and more modes of play. You can use it as a classic TV console and removable Joy-Cons as a separate controller for some local multiplayer games. But it’s chunky and too big for a pocket, so in terms of portability, it’s not as convenient. Did I mention it cost $100 more than Lite?

It boils down to preferences. If you’re on a budget and don’t like local multiplayer or are disinterested in TV gameplay, cheaper Lite is a better choice. If you don’t mind slightly worse ergonomics but appreciate three hours of additional gameplay in handheld mode, and TV option Nintendo Switch 2019 should be your choice.

Our wishes for the next model

There is a third option. We would like to see the upgraded version in 2021.  We would like to see higher quality OLED screen and some kind of 4K support.

Could we also get more than 10 hours of gameplay in handheld mode? Maybe Nintendo will allow Bluetooth audio connectivity? Another must-have is more storage space than the measly 32 GB current versions pack, and all this within the same price range. Right? It’s always nice to end on a dreamy note.

What we liked: Immense battery life, unassuming design with a strong emphasis on functionality over fluff, perhaps the first-ever example of a premium gamepad gyro implementation, and a USB Type A to Type C cable that can double as a bungee cord.

What we didn’t like: Underwhelming d-pad, no fast charging support, Nintendo’s pricing being far from anything resembling value.

Score: 9 out of 10

Finding flaws with the Switch Pro Controller isn’t impossible, but it’s a rather thankless activity. Because the overall package is nothing short of stellar. To the point that not even the most avid anti-Nintendo people would end up disappointed if they picked up the Pro Controller on a sale, with or without the console itself.

Ok, that last one might be pushing it because good luck finding a sale of any Nintendo product that isn’t a 3DS wallpaper expiring in the summer of 2021. Either way, keep in mind that this review won’t be delving into in-depth comparisons between the Switch Pro Controller and its direct rivals (stay tuned for those). But just as a point of reference, let it be known that the Switch Pro controller was the first gamepad that genuinely impressed me since the Xbox One hit the market eight years ago. And it’s the first non-Microsoft gamepad I bothered connecting to a PC in over a decade.

Given the somewhat more casual demographic Nintendo’s semi-handheld (one-handed?) console is targeting, it is quite likely that many Switch owners who end up with the Pro Controller will find it to be by far the best gamepad they have ever had the pleasure of using. A cynic might say they didn’t know any better, but that would be entirely unfair to the Pro Controller. There simply aren’t that many outright better options across any system. There never were, either, because  making a controller that checks so many boxes is no mean feat.

The Pro Controller is by far the most impressive Nintendo gamepad I ever used. Coincidentally, it’s also the first non-edgy gamepad Nintendo released in forever. An avid Smash player might still swear by the GameCube controller, but that crime against ergonomics and eyesight doesn’t even register on my end. And not to take away from the Wii’s planetary success, but thank Miyamoto-san we finally got a boring controller out of Nintendo. Having a way to play games using something that doesn’t look like an AC remote, Etch A Sketch, or a discarded Space Invader design is a pretty nice change of pace.

For Whom Is the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller?

Don’t let the buzzwordy name fool you: looking at gaming gadgets, on the whole, the Pro Controller is as accessible as they come. The only “pro” requirement to buying it is being pro-not being poor, seeing how it’s far from the most affordable alternative on the market. But we’ll get to that later, the point here is that if you own a Switch and a TV or a monitor (i.e., play docked), the Pro Controller is a must-have.

The experience of gaming with the Pro Controller is superior to using Joy-Cons in pretty much every way. From battery life and ergonomics to input granularity and haptic feedback, the only downside to using it is that you won’t be able to return to that bizarre-looking flimsy squircle of a Joy-Con grip from the moment you pick it up.

In an ideal world, the Pro Controller would have been a fancier alternative to the Joy-Cons. In our world, the Joy-Cons have been inviting class-action lawsuits left and right since the Switch released, due to how faulty they are and continue to be. And while you can’t exactly avoid them in an officially sanctioned way while playing handheld, using the Switch docked should be synonymous with using the Pro Controller given how much better the overall experience is.

So, if you’re even considering the possibility that the Joy-Cons might not be enough for you, you’ve already passed that threshold and you can be sure that they aren’t, or they won’t be from the moment your Switch arrives.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Review: Design and Build Quality

The Switch Pro Controller is pleasantly unassuming in its design. Its gentle, symmetrical curves are as close as one can get to universal ergonomics, so that even long sessions are easy on the hands.

Its translucent outer shell is an interesting quirk which gives it a distinct look in spite of the complete absence of color. In retrospect, Nintendo anticipated design trends better better than anyone as both Sony and Microsoft followed its lead only recently by releasing premium single-color controllers of their own. Even compared to the newest rivals, the Pro Controller’s part-retro, part-modern aesthetic is unmistakable.

One final consideration concerning color is that an all-black device is much easier to maintain than a brightly-colored one. From a purely visual standpoint, naturally. Nintendo also opted for two different textures between the central part of the device and its grips. The latter do have more grip to their finish, but the difference is subtle; subtle enough for a Pro Controller session not to be synonymous with involuntary skin grating.

On the off chance you’ll want make the device even more grippy, there are countless low-cost accessories that help accomplish that goal, but but we’ll get back to them in a bit.

Moving on on the mechanical front, the ZL/ZR triggers on the Pro Controller aren’t of the analog variety. Which is a shame, but not something that matters too much given how rarely this tech was utilized to its full potential in the past. Both the triggers and front-facing buttons are pleasantly clicky. But not in the sliding-Joy-Cons-into-position kind of way; it’s just that pushing them feels super satisfying. Doubly so for pressing the analog triggers.

On that note, the only time I missed brighter colors while using the Pro Controller was in the first few weeks with Switch way back when. If you’re used to a different controller configuration, especially the Xbox layout, instinctively knowing where the X,Y,B, and A buttons are located is going to take some getting used to.

As of a couple of years ago, delving into the Switch system settings will let you turn on a blue-tinted LED ring encircling the Pro Controller’s Home button. This subtle notification light is clearly inspired by the original Wii Remote – aka Wiimote – which offered a similar feature, as did that other console that came after it. Either way, while it’s functionally limited to your own alarms and update notifications, the LED ring is a nice touch that adds to the retro-futuristic look of the Pro Controller. If only we hadn’t didn’t have to wait two and a half years for Nintendo to even enable the thingy.

As far as the build quality is concerned, the only definitive shortcoming of the Pro Controller is its D-pad. Of all gaming hardware manufacturers on the market, Nintendo’s probably the last company I’d expect to mess up binary input but here we are. The directional arrows offer way too much resistance to be used as a comfortable control method in games that support such configurations. They don’t exactly excel on shortcut duty, either. In fact, that’s precisely when you’re most likely to get annoyed with the Pro Controller’s D-pad. Dying in reflex-based games like Shovel Knight and Celeste because you haven’t rammed your thumb in the pointy edge of the Up arrow hard enough gets old pretty fast.

On a brighter and even more unexpected note, the USB Type A to type C cable that ships with the Switch Pro Controller might just very well be the most impressive cord ever to grace consumer electronics. At ten feet in length and given its thick insulation, it might as well be used for bungee jumping in between charging sessions. The one that came with the Pro Controller I bought alongside the Switch on release day still looks as good as new. Moreover, it is the only cable I don’t think twice about packing wherever I go, with or without any other Nintendo gear.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Review: Features and Connectivity

The connectivity side of the Switch Pro equation is multifaceted. The bulk of it rests on its Bluetooth capabilities which are more than acceptable in virtually every respect. I tried measuring its relatively unobstructed range but ran out of apartment block space after about 25 to 30 feet. For comparison, this highly scientific technology assessment technique caused both Joy-Cons to disconnect at about 20 feet. Both of the main Wii U gamepads were excellent in this regard as well, so it seems Nintendo’s mastery of the Bluetooth protocol continues.

Speaking of which, you might be surprised to learn that the Switch Pro Controller actually uses the Bluetooth 3.0 specification. Four years can really seem like a long time in the technology industry but Nintendo’s implementation was definitely good enough for that age not to show in the slightest. The main improvements with newer Bluetooth generations are largely focused on energy efficiency, anyway. And as you’ll learn in a few paragraphs, the Pro Controller doesn’t need any help in that regard, anyway.

In terms of connection stability, I had zero issues with the device. And it’s been operating surrounded by wireless interference, from headphones and other controllers to TVs, smartphones, laptops, and even radio-controlled speedlites operating right on top of it. In all fairness, that certainly speaks to the strengths of the Bluetooth standard about as much as it’s meant to be praise for Nintendo’s implementation of the tech.

Apart from its standard wireless mode, you can even use the Pro Controller wired while it’s recharging. Granted, it’s going to take a while until you reach that point, but we’ll get to that in a second. Frankly, there’s not much that can be said on the subject of the Pro Controller’s wired connectivity, it’s a remarkably unremarkable feature surrounded by all that greatness.

You might even experience some lag using this wired mode, which is pretty much unheard of during wireless operation. Based on a bit of testing, this appears to have something to do with the fact NFC transmissions don’t stop once the Pro Controller is plugged in. You can turn them off from an obscure systems menu but doing so might affect your wireless experience if you forget to flip the switch back on again. Not because the Pro Controller relies on Near-Field Communications to talk with the Switch, but due to the fact that this protocol is the lifeline of its Amiibo support. And yet you won’t get any specific warnings about it being turned off while you’re trying to do a reading. That’s not exactly a huge design oversight, just something to keep in mind on the rare occasion you have to play via a wired connection.

On a final note concerning connectivity, the Switch Pro controller feels like a premium PC accessory, as well. You can use it to play virtually any Windows game with some kind of controller support, but a word of warning for those not of the tinkering spirit: outside of Steam, getting the Switch Pro controller to work with your particular game can be a rather finicky experience.

Nintendo, naturally, isn’t offering anything in the way of official support. But there’s a handful of independently developed drivers that do the job quite nicely. Only Steam can compare to the native experience in terms of wireless consistency, though. Hacky drivers and the like have a tendency to drop the connection at the worst possible moment. And yet I’d take them any day of the week over the iOS experience. Despite linking with the iPad Pro near-instantaneously, the Pro Controller would constantly load in completely different configurations, none of which ever had both analog thumbsticks working properly. A shame, really, because it would otherwise be the ideal Apple Arcade accessory – it’s way lighter than the Xbox One | X/S controller, has a monster battery, and even charges via USB Type C, which basically makes it a unicorn in the world of physical interfaces. So much for the chances of these two “pros” working together.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Review: Battery Life

Battery life is arguably the strongest suit of the Nintendo Switch Pro controller. The thing is basically impossible to kill in a single week, even if you’re actively trying to do so. While writing this long-term review, I’ve attempted to do so twice. Both undertakings ended after four or five days with me unwittingly plugging it back to recharge after a getting pinged for an item exchange in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Nintendo claims the Pro Controller can consistently offer 40 hours of standalone operation on a single charge, and amazingly, it might actually be underselling the device. Then again, the cited figure probably has an arbitrary testing scenario in mind. Everyone’s mileage will obviously vary, most of all by how far away from the Switch they actually are while gaming.

Individual choice of games shouldn’t have a massive impact on the number of usage hours one manages to squeeze out of a single battery charge. And while that claim is purely anecdotal, keep in mind that this is coming from someone who played a much wider variety of games than most Switch owners even have any interest in. Not that I did, to be completely honest. But that’s precisely the point: if I could have added “wastes more battery than BOTW” to my list of grudges against 1-2-Switch, believe me, I would.

Due to the ingenuity of (people who standardized) Bluetooth, the Switch Pro Controller will give you circa 40 hours of usage no matter whether you spend them furiously mashing buttons or leaving it to idle indefinitely. It has to be constantly connected to the console, anyway, and those few extra bytes of difference between a no-input and input signal aren’t too stressful on the battery – this isn’t Wi-Fi and Google Stadia we’re talking about, praise the sun.

Now, if saving battery life is your one and only concern, by far the most effective way to do so is to play without HD Rumble. But assuming you’re not doing so for health-related reasons, you’re robbing yourself of one of the controller’s best and most novel features. I mean, you’re missing out on just as much even if it’s due to health concerns, but that’s understandable. I love HD Rumble, but I think I love not having aggravated arthritis even more. Bonus points if that means my Pro Controller lasts even longer between top-ups.

Here’s a fun and highly contextual fact: as unbelievable as this might sound, the Pro Controller still doesn’t come close to the Wii U Pro Controller on the battery life front. Its predecessor featured the same battery the 3DS did and had no trouble offering 70-75+ hours of autonomy. Its single charge basically outlasted the entire Wii U generation. Dozens of witnesses can attest to this, guaranteed.

Back here in the present, the Pro Controller doesn’t have to worry about any such Pyrrhic victories. And neither do its owners need to be concerned about battery levels. Oh, and that 3DS battery? It actually ended up in the pipeline for a third console generation in a row and is the 1,300mAh cell powering the Switch Pro Controller.

Now, the main downside to having a 10-year-old battery technology powering the show is that quick charging support isn’t part of the package. There’s simply no room for implementation, and so, the Switch Pro Controller will take around five and a half hours to fully recover from a shutdown. The exact figure will mostly depend on the overall battery health, i.e., age, and real-world environmental variables such as temperature.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Review: Customizability via Third-Party Accessories

From shells, sleeves, bags, and grips, to full-fledged protective cases, memory card holsters, and even stuff like thumbstick extenders and smartphone clips, the selection of third-party accessories for the Pro Controller is vast and . Which is par for the course – with a fanbase numbering over 80 million people as of right now, it’s no wonder there’s so much competition in the Switch accessory space.

The Pro Controller is arguably the second-largest benefactor of this state of affairs, right after the console itself. It is, after all, arguably its most popular accessory. As you’re hopefully starting to realize by now, that’s not without merit. And you can add a high degree of cheap customizations to the list of the Switch Pro Controller’s selling points. Whether to fine-tune your grip, protect the gamepad from the elements (no need IMO), or simply make it a bit more “yours” with a cool skin or some personality-building stickers, the choices are near-limitless.

If you’d like a more in-depth overview of the subject matter, that’s precisely what our Nintendo Switch Pro Controller guide is for, among other things, such as detailing every special edition of the gamepad Nintendo released to date.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Review: Longevity and Reparability

The closest things that the Switch Pro Controller has to axial screws are a couple of bolts positioned just out of sight but readily within reach. They’re sitting at the pointiest ends of the gamepad’s handles and getting by them requires nothing beyond an ordinary Philips #00 screwdriver.

The rest of the controller’s construction will reveal itself once the handles lose their outer shells. But to cut the teardown instructions short, the takeaway is that the gamepad is semi-repairable. Meaning you’ll be able to do a battery replacement with nothing beyond a screwdriver and willpower to spend five minutes on YouTube: 4:30 to learn what your instructor did over the weekend and 0:30 to learn what you need to do.

With that said, don’t expect you’ll be doing a battery replacement anytime soon – or ever. Barring defects, the cells powering the Switch Pro Controller are a tried and tested series, as explained above. And one of their tried and tested traits is their remarkable ability to iterate on a typical charge-discharge-recharge cycle with minimal degradation.

This battery longevity is also the silver lining to the gamepad’s lack of fast charging support. As even the latest, cutting-edge tech is still pretty detrimental to modern batteries. It’s better not to imagine what it would do to the Switch and, by extent, the Pro Controller’s battery in terms of long-term performance. Slow and steady wins the race, especially since the gamepad is already running in a (40-hour) league of its own.

Not to mention that new battery tech comes with new profit expectations from the manufacturers who funded the R&D that made them happen in the first place. On the other hand, the 3DS/Wii U/Switch Pro Controller battery stock has been plentiful since, like, 2012 at the latest. Looking at Amazon right now, you can get a brand-new one for $10.95. It even comes with a screwdriver for disassembling the gamepad itself.

The analog sticks are technically user-replaceable, as well. The process itself might be a bit too much for first-time tinkerers, unless they really do their homework. Which includes confirming that random $5 thumbstick extenders can’t solve their issue with much less fuss.

The ABXY buttons and the Pro Controller’s directional pad can also be replaced using conventional means and a bit of patience. Ditto for the four triggers on the outward-facing side of the gamepad. A complete outer shell replacement and a dozen spare buttons will run you up to $25, or half that if you’re boring and order the original all-black casing. That’s not accounting for potential shipping costs, but if you’re in the U.S., plenty of such offerings ship stateside for free via every relevant e-commerce platform.

Does the Nintendo Pro Controller Suffer From Any Bugs?

Given the tragic quality control employed for the Joy-Cons, being anxious over the possibility of buying a defective Switch Pro Controller is an understandable concern to have. But the two aren’t comparable, based on countless user reports and personal experience from the last four years. That isn’t to say not a single Switch Pro Controller owner ever reported their device drifting, i.e., registering (often erratic) ghost movement. Phantom inputs have been a thing since the dawn of joysticks. The appearance of analogue sticks on gamepads made the issue more widespread, but the Joy-Cons truly elevated it to another level, being as faulty as they are.

Fortunately, the Switch Pro Controller is nowhere near as sensitive to whatever’s causing the Joy-Cons to drift so consistently; “whatever” most likely being a combination of poor dust protection and mechanical grease clogs.

My four years with the device were virtually spotless during regular use; not accounting for the frustrating iPad Pro pairing attempt described above and the occasional Bluetooth hiccup during PC gaming sessions.

About the Price

$70 is a lot for a gamepad, I won’t contest that. And I wasn’t any happier with that price tag back in 2017 than I am today. But partially thanks to how great the Switch Pro Controller turned out to be, and in part due to how unreliable the Joy-Cons remained throughout the years, I choose to view that $70 as the cost of Switch ownership. I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who bought the console but won’t invest in the Pro Controller, which is both a technical upgrade in almost every respect and much more intuitive to use in the vast majority of games available for the system.

To summarize: if you own a Switch and mean to dock it, get the Pro Controller. It doesn’t matter if you mostly play handheld, it doesn’t matter if you only have an old 720p monitor to connect to or are yet to buy a TV, and it doesn’t matter if you consider yourself a complete casual.

So long as you’re enjoying your time with the Switch and money isn’t an immediate concern, the Pro Controller should be at the very top of your tech priority list. It will enable you to game more, ennoble what you have already been playing, and bolster your mobile gadget collection with the toughest, meanest USB Type-C cable you ever saw. Coupled with unofficial PC connectivity and best-in-class… no, *the* best battery life on the market,  the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller can definitely take on on every other mainstream alternative that money can currently buy.

Doubly so after both Sony and Microsoft raised their gamepad prices for this latest console generation. These days, they are more or less matching Nintendo’s asking fee but without clearly outmatching the incumbent flagship gamepad. And unlike these pricey newcomers, the Switch Pro Controller already demonstrated its longevity. Meaning it still represents the safest $70 one will be able to spend on a controller for the foreseeable future.

What we liked: Up to nine hours of handheld gameplay, a vast library of games with excellent exclusive titles, motion sensitive controllers with three play modes. It’s like a transformer!

What we don’t like:  Graphics quality lags behind the competition, Bluetooth wireless headsets not supported, scratch susceptible screen, Joy-Cons drift issue.

Score: 8 out of 10

Nintendo Switch has been around since 2017, with sales figures that have been surprising competitors from quarter to quarter, which then resulted in a slight hardware upgrade with the Nintendo Switch 2019.

The console itself is unique on the market because it’s the only modern handheld console on the market. To top it off, there’s also a vast game library, with Super Mario, Zelda and Pokemon being the headliners.

Other multiplatform titles like FIFA, Fortnite, Civilization VI, Witcher III, and similar triple-A titles, are also available on the Switch, making it an even more appealing console of choice.

With that said, the plan for today’s Nintendo Switch Review is to go through the most important features, hardware specs, game library, accessories, and other essential aspects of the device in this review. But first, to play on the latest Nintendo gaming system, you will need to set up a couple of things – accounts before all.

Nintendo Switch Review: Data Management

Powering the Switch console for the first time leads you to a profile set up and linking with your Nintendo account. If you already have it, you can log in, but If not, it’s not a hassle because you can set it up in a few minutes. You just need a valid e-mail address.

The reason behind the Nintendo account are the online services that big N is managing, which include the eShop for purchasing games, My Nintendo loyalty program, and for playing multiplayer games online, like Fortnite and Super Smash Brothers.

To create an account, you have to be 13 years or older. If you’re below that age limit, then you will need a parent or guardian to create a child account for you.

With the child account you get the option of limiting the playtime, suspending some software segments, customizing online features, deciding which games kids can play through a parent or guardian account, or with a companion app on your smartphone. Try not to go overboard with the number of accounts, because the console supports up to 8 registered users.

As for the triple-A titles which I mentioned earlier, if you want to play them, you will have to link additional accounts. Fortnite is among the most popular examples, and it requires an Epic Games account, while Apex Legends or FIFA 21 players will need an EA account, 2K for NBA 2K titles, and Ubisoft for Assassins Creed. Yeah, looks like your fingers will fall off from typing in all those credentials, but on the bright side, there is no need for additional account linking for Bethesda titles like Doom, Skyrim, and Wolfstein. The same applies to the LEGO games franchise and Witcher 3.

One thing to note is that the platform suffered a data breach in 2020 when more than 300,000 user accounts were compromised. The hackers took advantage of the same login credentials for Nintendo Network ID and Nintendo account, and since that data breach, the company discontinued this option and encouraged two-factor authentication (2FA), which I embraced immediately.

We will also soon update this part with a review of the terms of use.

Nintendo Switch Comparison: 2017 vs 2019 model

Nothing much changed in terms of looks, if you compare the original Nintendo Switch 2017 and the new Nintendo Switch 2019 model you’ll see that they are visually identical.

Funnily enough, both consoles are still available for purchases. You can spot the difference with packaging, where the new box is now primarily red compared to the white original. Another clue is  the model number on the back – if you have HAC-001(01), it is a newer version, and if it’s HAC-001, its the original from 2017.

If they are so alike, why should you get a new one?

• Well, there’s a stronger battery, with it you can play up to 9 hours in handheld mode, while the original had a maximum of around 6.5 hours.
• There is a slight upgrade in the display, with the V2 model having a little brighter screen.
• The Joy-Cons are visually identical, but Nintendo rearranged their antennas internally, so you’ll have less problems with their connectivity.

Nintendo Switch Review: Cost of Ownership

To begin with, you can get a Nintendo Switch console for $299.99 on Amazon. There are special editions like Animal Crossing: New Horizon for the same price or Monster Hunter Rise Deluxe that costs $369.99. There’s also a Lite version of the Switch, which is a handheld-only model, and you can get it for $199.99 in several colors, but more on that in our Nintendo Switch Lite review.

Unlike some previous Nintendo devices, most notably Wii U and Wii, the Switch console is not regionally locked, which means you can play your system regardless of where you bought it.

Although the Nintendo Switch doesn’t have the raw power like the rest of the next gen consoles, the main appeal is its convertible nature and vast games library. They don’t come cheap, but you can bump into various sales here and there.

Exclusive titles like Mario Kart Deluxe, SuperSmash Bros, or Super Mario Maker are $59.99. The same goes for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, you can find indie games that cost as low as $12.99, or games from other platforms like Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and LEGO games for $29.99.

A monthly subscription is needed for multiplayer gaming, and it will set you back $3.99 on a monthly basis. Three months will cost you $7.99, which is a better value proposition, but I find the best bang for your buck in a yearly fee of $19.99. What’s interesting about this, is that the prices haven’t changed since the launch, and I think that a lot of new users will appreciate this.

Like probably many users, I was disappointed with only 32 GB of internal storage, which is not nearly enough for comfortable gaming, so I suggest you immediately buy an SD card. SanDisk produces Nintendo Switch branded SD cards that come with 64 and 128 GB of storage. Theoretically, you can get up to 2TB of additional storage with SD cards. On that note, check out our best SD card for Nintendo Switch article, it will make your purchasing decision less time consuming

As for the accessories, I strongly recommend getting a screen protector. You can easily scratch the plastic screen, even by inserting it in the TV stand, so a tempered glass or other protectors that can cost 6 to 11 dollars are a must-have. Additional or new Joy-Con controller will cost you $39.99 for a single or $79.99 for a pair. Alternatively, you can play with a Pro controller that looks more like a traditional gamepad, and it comes with a $69.99 price tag. I’ve found myself playing on the TV with using the Pro version, as it provides an easier transition from other gaming systems.

Nintendo Switch also supports third-party controllers like JALVDE Wireless JoyPad with a handgrip on the controller that looks almost identical to Joy-Con but costs only $37 a pair. Retro gamers might like 8Bitdo SN30 Pro, and classic gamers will go for the PowerA Wireless GameCube Style controller. BEBONCOOL Wireless controller and Sunjoyco are cordless options.

Nintendo Switch Review: Setup and Hardware

The first setup of Nintendo Switch is surprisingly simple. After connecting the AC adapter, and HDMI to your TV, you’ll need to attach the Joy-Con controllers to the console. Then it’s time to follow on-screen prompts to complete the first-time setup. Configure Internet settings by connecting to your wireless network, selecting Time Zone, and then set up your icon and nickname. Now it’s time to connect your Nintendo account or create one!

When you want to use Switch in handheld mode, just attach the Joy-Cons, press the power button, and that’s it, you’re good to go. The powertrain used in it comes from NVIDIA’s Tegra chipset, and it can efficiently run its 720p resolution screen as a mobile gaming system, and higher 1080p resolution when connected to the TV. In that case, the console should be in the docking and connected to a TV with an HDMI cable. I feel Nintendo Switch is best suited for players that like local multiplayer games with split-screen. One of my favorite things about Switch is a continuation of gameplay in handheld mode.

Since Nintendo Switch is completely made out of plastic from the outside, it doesn’t feel premium, while it is sustainable to scratches on both front and back. Joy-Cons left me a much better impression. They are a pair of lightweight controllers divided as designated L and R sides. There is a stand for controllers in TV mode, and in handheld, you’ll have to insert Joy-Cons into the console by sliding them in until you hear a satisfying click (sometimes I do it just for the funsies). Clicking the button on the back and pulling them out will release them. If you consider Switch’s longevity, the small plastic kickstand feels most brittle, unlike the rails on the console where you put controllers. Joy-Cons have a fair build quality, and the Pro controller can give you even more confidence for playing in the long run.

Controllers do feel responsive and adequate even after months of heavy use. They have a clickable analog stick, four face buttons, two top buttons, and two side buttons accessible in detach mode. Accelerometer and gyroscope are integrated for motion tracking and haptic feedback option HD Rumble, and they are conveniently charged when connected with the console.

One of the most frequent issues with the Switch is Joy-Con controllers drifting that effect some players, but I didn’t have that problem. Drifting of the analog sticks causes characters to move on the screen without user intention. This problem affects the left Joy-Con more frequently, and according to comments on the system, communities’ newer model is not as affected.

Moving back to the console, the Switch has a multi-touch capacitive 6.2 inch LCD screen with, for todays’ standard, relatively low 1280 x 720 resolution. On the flip side, I was pleasantly surprised with the system IPS display that has decent brightness and vibrant colors. HD resolution is just satisfactory for the screen size, and the games look sharp. Naturally, IPS has excellent viewing angles, which comes in great if you are opt-in for a split-screen local multiplayer. Previous Nintendo 3DS had both TN and IPS screens, and TN lost the color vibrancy when viewed from a slightly different angle.

Battery life on the refreshed model will get you 4.5-9 hours of playtime, depending on screen brightness, sound loudness, and even the game, for example, Zelda Breath of the Wild and other more demanding titles will eat up the battery fast, but playing Tetris can get you maximum battery life. After all, here you’re only piling blocks on top of each other, although, yeah, this is probably the best mobile gaming experience available out there.

Download speed for downloading digital copies of games is decent but somewhat limited so that the small console doesn’t overheat. Nintendo supports 5 GHz connectivity, and you can get up to 3 MB/s download speed in practice, but the maximum download speed can be improved if you change MTU (maximum transmission unit) setting to 1500. For Animal Crossing and its 12 GB of download data, I needed around 75 minutes of downloading.

Nintendo Switch also has Bluetooth 4.1, but it doesn’t support audio connections, so you will have to work around it with a Bluetooth dongle to connect your latest noise-canceling wireless headset. Similarly, like with Bluetooth, Nintendo doesn’t have a LAN port, but there’s an option of buying an adapter for a more reliable network connection.

Nintendo Switch Review: App Library in 2021

Although the Switch is primarily a gaming console, with access to an essential vast game library, there are some applications outside of games, and the best one is YouTube.

Hulu, for example, is a premium streaming service with live and on-demand movies, is also available, but there is no Netflix or Amazon Prime. How can I chill without Netflix? Impossibru!

If you like reading comics, Nintendo has you covered with the Inky Pen app that has an enormous range of titles, and you can unlock its premium version for $7.99. Among other apps, you can try KORG Gadget, a music creation software with numerous synthesizers and drum machines, or Coloring Book, a simple coloring app for kids.

Nintendo Switch Review: Game Library in 2021

Nintendo Switch library of games has more than 2000 titles, with The Legends of Zelda, Super Mario and Pokemon games topping it. As soon as the Switch came out, many Wii U games became instantly available on it, but the company also created remakes with enhanced graphics.

Zelda’s Breath of the Wild was the biggest hit on the Switch, and it was initially released for Wii U, just like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Unfortunately, there are currently no Metroid games available.

If you don’t plan to buy physical game cards, you can download games digitally from their eShop. I found the experience usable, but it felt a bit clunky and unintuitive. There is limited functionality to the shop and subpar organization of the game library, which is a shame considering what they represent. Once you get the hang of it, you can check out the prices.

Exclusive titles cost $59.99, third-party games like Skyrim, Doom, and other costs $29.99. The platform also has a vibrant indie game scene with numerous titles. Among US cross-platform bestseller is just $4.99, but most indie games cost $12.99. Unfortunately, if you’re in to card games or want to check out Nintendo’s slot machine selection, I will need to disappoint you – there aren’t any good ones.

As a handheld console, Switch was my best ally on long commute trips, I went through numerous single-player games in my A to B point travels, while I was always able to switch between the big screen and handheld mode once I found myself back in the apartment. Super Mario Odyssey and the Legends of Zelda: Breath of the Wild can alone give you countless hours of single-player gameplay, which is why I invested in both. I also replayed Skyrim once again. And once again.

On the other hand, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Super Mario Party, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe are among the top local multiplayer supported games, which is why I got them for when my friends come over. You can divide the screen for up to four players and compete in these highly engaging and before all nostalgia-triggering titles.

Competitive online multiplayer games like Apex Legends and Fortnite, or FIFA 21, Minecraft, and countless others are also available. I’m more of a FIFA guy, and the experience is similar to other platforms, so it gets a thumbs up from me. You’ll have to pay a subscription to play online unless your focus is on Fortnite, which can be played without Nintendo Switch Online.

If you want to see some of the other equally fun and popular games, check out our detailed list where we covered the best Nintendo Switch games of all time.

How’s the online community?

Nintendo fans are an outspoken community with sometimes hardline attitudes. I was surprised by the Smash community and the toxicity level when Waluigi wasn’t in the game. Angry fans asked for Sakurai to be fired, and there were even some physical threats.

The absence of National Dex in recent Pokemon Sword & Shield turned the Pokemon fans into an angry divided group, while Animal Crossing has a formidable group of fans complaining about the lack of cloud save options. And while I understand the frustration levels, but not the vile nature of posts, of Pokemon enthusiasts, some Animal Crossing comments are hard to comprehend.

Zelda and Super Mario followers have much less drama, and the games have huge online communities. Like on all other platforms, Fortnite clout-seeking youngsters are on the verge of ruining the game for quiet players. Apex Legends players complain about the graphical downgrade, which makes it unplayable for most, and I can’t tell that I disagree.

Accessorize Availability

We all know that accessories have always been Nintendo’s strong side, I myself have a dedicated shelf of it. I blame their store which has interesting addons like Joy-Con Wheel Accessory Pair, where you can insert controllers in the Wheel and play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe-type games with a wheel.

Another timeless add-on for it is the Hayabusa which is used for old-school fighting games that our fingers pounded day in, day out. With its analog stick and nine buttons, it really brings you back to all of those arcade times that you had with your friends. Remember when we used to go outside? For gamers who want to stay in shape, or get to it, there’s the RingFit Adventure and Ring fitness accessory. Of course, there are your other run-of-the-mill add-ons, Bluetooth transmitters, wireless headsets, play stands, and many more accessories, and you can find our picks in our separate best Nintendo Switch accessories article.

Verdict and our wishes for the next model

For all Super Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon fans, Nintendo Switch is a no-brainer, nostalgia hits hard here. When it’s all set and done, I liked the portability aspect the most, which is Switch’s key offering, as well as the longer battery life of this refreshed version.

The huge game library only cements the rest of the positive impressions, with some awesome third-party games like Witcher III, Rocket League, and for me, Skyrim.

I would be a monster if I wouldn’t mention that I LOVED the local multiplayer racing in Mario Kart, while, yeah, other classic multiplayer games like Fortnite and FIFA deliver on what they promise. Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, there are some areas for improvement, for example, the screen could be bigger and Nintendo could work on Bluetooth connectivity.

I would love to see seamless Bluetooth audio connectivity, improved scratch resistance, and solved Joy-Con drifting problems, as well as more internal storage space.

When the announcement that Disney were reviving the much-loved series first came, it was of course met with a rush of excitement, but also a severe twang of angst. Why? Because – as we saw with ill-recieved prequels – Star Wars is a franchise that’s easy to get wrong.

Fortunately, this time, newly appointed director J.J. Abrams (Armageddon, Cloverfield) got it very, very right. With twists galore, laughs aplenty and a lovely big dose of nostalgia, The Force Awakens is the film so many of us were praying it would be.

Perfect? No, of course not. There are several scenes – particularly the final sequence – which a lot of fans would’ve done a lot differently. However, it’s hard to knock the plot which, while typically over the top, keeps you guessing right up until the last blaster is fired.

The sense of destiny, that was so lovingly brought to life by the original films, returns with great effect. Abrams’ decision to almost instantly introduce our new set of heroes – Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and his droid BB-8 – both to each other and to us was a great move; it makes you feel as if The Force is in charge, as if all of these characters have a place they are going to and that the only way to find out where is simply to watch.

And watch you will, because the environments are stunning, the characters are intriguing and the acting is first class. As Rey, Ridley brings the kind of wonder and belonging that Hayden Christensen never really managed to capture in his role as Anakin Skywalker. Similarly, in his part as Stormtrooper-gone-rogue Finn, Boyega gives an assured and well-measured performance. Other special mentions go to Harrison Ford who, despite his wrinkles, will always be Han Solo, and Isaac; the man knows his way around an X-Wing.

The highest praise, however, must go to Adam Driver as the evil Kylo Ren. Having to portray a villain in the Star Wars universe that isn’t Darth Vader, but who must have a similar impact to Darth Vader, is an absolutely thankless task; yet Driver pulls it off almost effortlessly. Conflicted, angry, tainted by The Dark Side, there is a sense of fear ever-present in Driver’s eyes that reveals more about Ren than any plot-device ever could.

The Force Awakens is a miraculous return to form for the series and it truly deserves every accolade that is thrown its way. If the next two films are anything like this one, we all have a lot to look forward to. Go out and see it.

Final Verdict: 9.5/10 

What did you make of our Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review? Tell us in the comments section below.

Make sure to check out some of our other articles – Krampus Film Review, The Biggest Gaming Letdowns of 2015 – and, for all your latest gaming news, follow @Gamer_Headlines and @Jayswriting on Twitter.

Original Author: Jay Michaels