The best game of 2022 according to Metacritic is the lowest price it has ever been on the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch OLED via the Nintendo eShop, the digital storefront of the Nintendo machine. While many may assume Elden Ring or God of War Ragnarok are the highest-rated games of the year, they aren’t. Elden Ring boasts a 96 on Metacritic, the same score as Portal Companion Collection, but the latter is listed as the highest-rated game of this year for presumably being closer to 97 than Elden Ring. That’s right, the Nintendo Switch version of Portal Companion Collection is the highest-rated game of the year according to Metacritic, and it’s currently on sale.
The game just came to Nintendo Switch back in June so the discount isn’t too heavy, but this is the cheapest it’s been on the Nintendo Switch yet. More specifically, and for a limited time the game is 33 percent off, which means rather than $19.99, it’s $13.39. For those that don’t know: Portal Companion Collection contains Portal and Portal 2, two of some of the best games ever made.
“Including Portal and Portal 2, the Companion Collection comes to Nintendo Switch with all the groundbreaking gameplay, dark humor, and exploration that earned the series hundreds of awards,” reads the game’s official description on the Nintendo eShop. “In Portal, you’ll use a highly experimental portal device to solve physical puzzles and challenges. Maneuver objects–and yourself–through space to puzzle your way through the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories.”
The official description continues, describing Portal 2: “Return to Aperture Laboratories in Portal 2 where you’ll once again face off with the lethally inventive, power-mad A.I. named GLaDOS. Meet an expanded cast of characters as you think your way through dangerous, never-before-seen areas of the laboratories and a wider variety of portal puzzles. Plus Portal 2 also includes a cooperative game mode with local, split-screen, and online multiplayer so you and a friend can think with portals.”
It’s important to note that it’s unclear how long this deal is available. In other words, by the time you’re reading this, it may have expired. We know it’s a limited-time offer that’s now been available for a few days, but that’s the extent of what we know.
Nintendo Switch users who are already subscribed to Nintendo’s top-tier version of its online service, the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack option, have some more perks coming their way soon. These limited-time offerings were announced by Nintendo this week a surprise additions tot eh benefits already included in the service and will be live starting on November 1st. They include double the Gold Points spent on eligible games and DLCs as well as some icons that invoke the Nintendo 64 era.
As is the case with some of these announcements, players first found out about these extra perks through some posts on the Nintendo Japan site, but the benefits were later confirmed for other regions as well. The Nintendo of America Twitter account, for example, tweeted about it this weekend to confirm what the perks would be and when they’d start. That tweet also offered a preview of the Nintendo 64 icons that’ll be available come November which include things like the console and controller itself, Mario Kart, Star Fox, Kirby, and other memorable characters and games.
Limited-time benefits are coming for #NintendoSwitchOnline + Expansion Pack members on 11/1!
✔ Earn double #MyNintendo Gold Points on the purchase of eligible digital games or DLC in Nintendo #eShop and My Nintendo Store.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) October 22, 2022
Nintendo didn’t specify what “eligible digital games or DLC” look like, so we don’t know just yet what this deal applies to and what it doesn’t. However, Nintendo does have a couple of high-profile releases coming up, so there’s a good chance subscribers will be able to get double the Gold Points from purchases on things like Bayonetta 3, Pokemon Sword, and Pokemon Shield.
This perk is going on the UK, too, though that promotion said users would get twice the Gold Points on all Nintendo eShop purchases instead of just some of them. But again, if there’s something newish that you’ve been considering buying from the eShop, you probably don’t have much to worry about in terms of eligibility.
Even though these perks are marketed as being limited-time benefits, they’re going on for quite a while. These won’t end until January 31st, and hopefully, something will replace them after they expire to give Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers extra benefits.
Following its announcement from earlier in the year that Nintendo eShop support on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS systems would end in March 2023, Nintendo has begun winding down some of the eShop’s associated features. One of those features will be retired on May 23rd and marks the first stage of the shutdown plans outlined by Nintendo whenever it made its announcement. On that day, Wii U and 3DS owners will no longer be able to add funds to their accounts on those platforms via credit card payments.
For those who may have missed the initial announcement, the details were shared within a page on Nintendo’s support site which lists the various steps that’ll lead to the total shutdown of the Nintendo eShop on the Wii U and 3DS platforms. The first step is the end of credit card usage on those devices.
“As of May 23, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a credit card to add funds to an account in Nintendo eShop on Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS family of systems,” the support site said.
With the option to fund your wallet on those platforms soon to be removed, your only method of adding funds to the eShop via a Wii U or 3DS will be to use a physical Nintendo eShop Card. That will work until August 29th when that option is also removed, but even after that happens, you’ll still be able to use download codes to acquire things on your systems.
Or, if you have a Nintendo Switch and your various accounts and logins are linked correctly, you can use the wallet balance shared between the console generations to purchase things on the 3DS or Wii U.
“Users who link their Nintendo Network ID wallet (used with Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems) with their Nintendo Account wallet (used with the Nintendo Switch family of systems) can use the shared balance to purchase content on any of these systems until late March 2023,” Nintendo said. “After that, the balance can only be used to purchase content for the Nintendo Switch family of systems.”
By March 2023, purchases and free downloads will be retired entirely on the 3DS and Wii U systems, so get some use out of them while you can as the various eShop futures continue to wind down.
Bad news for anyone trying to redownload some old DSi games or Wii titles via each consoles’ respective store channels: Currently, players report both channels are down and have been for a few days now. Many are now concerned the channels may not return, possibly locking away a lot of digital content that people owned and didn’t have a chance to download before the possible surprise shutdown.
Correction: This story originally confused 3DS and DSi. This has been fixed and links and the headline have been changed to reflect the correction.
As spotted by Eurogamer, it appears that since March 16 the official Nintendo DSi and Wii Shop Channels have been offline. If this shutdown is permanent and these stores never return, then they seem to have been closed with no advanced warning from Nintendo.
To be clear: You haven’t been able to buy anything on the Wii Shop Channel since 2019. And the DSi shop stopped letting you buy content before that in 2017.
However, in both cases, Nintendo didn’t announce any dates or specific plans for when these stores would be shut down entirely. If they have been in fact closed for good, with no heads up, that’s bad.
The possible premature and unnotified closing of these stores is a big deal for many. Once (or if) these digital shops close for good, you’ll be unable to re-download any content you previously purchased on them. Many players would probably like a few months to download and install some of their favorite or hard-to-find DSi and Wii exclusives before the door is closed on the servers forever.
Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo about the stores being down for days and if it has plans to bring them back online.
Over on the announcement page for the news that Nintendo was ending support of the DSI store, this is what the publisher said about the future, emphasis mine:
“The ability to re-download purchased content or transfer content to a Nintendo 3DS family system will continue after the Nintendo DSi Shop closure for an as-yet-unspecified amount of time. If you are thinking of transferring your DSiWare content to a Nintendo 3DS family system, we encourage you to do so at your earliest convenience while the service is still available.”
And over on the support page announcing its plans for the Wii Shop Channel, you can find a similar message, and Nintendo does acknowledge it will probably one day shut it all down and again, emphasis mine:
“However, for the time being you may continue to re-download content you have purchased or transfer that content from a Wii system to a Wii U system. Be aware that these features will eventually end at a future date.”
Still, it seems pretty shitty to pull the plug completely on these stores with no warning. It’s also possible that this is just an extended amount of downtime due to some behind-the-scenes issues or technical hiccups we aren’t aware of. If so, Nintendo has yet (as of March 20 at 3:15 EST p.m.) to publicly acknowledge the outage or its cause.
Another interesting thing to note is that some players have reported the ability to still be able to download games and DLC via third-party tools like NUSDownloader. This seems to imply that the servers are still up in some capacity, but the storefronts are down for some unknown reason.
A long-awaited Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch OLED RPG has been canceled after several previous delays. Many of the best RPGs of the last decade or so are available on the Nintendo Switch. For example, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Skyrim, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 are all available on Nintendo Switch. These are probably the three best RPGs of the last 10 years or so. That said, one game hardcore RPG fans of the genre on Switch have been waiting for is Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire from Obsidian Entertainment, the studio best known for games like Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol, and The Outer Worlds. When it comes to RPGs, Obsidian is a Mount Rushmore-level studio. And some of its best work has been its work on Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and its predecessor.
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire debuted back in 2018 via the PC and to an 88 on Metacritic, making it one of the highest-rated games of its year. Two years later the game came to Xbox One and PS4. The expectation was for the RPG to come to Nintendo Switch in 2018, but then it was delayed to 2019. Then in August 2019, publisher Versus Evil teased that the Switch version was “coming soon.” Since then, it’s been crickets, up until now.
“Unfortunately, after much deliberation, we have decided not to move forward with Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire for the Nintendo Switch,” said Versus Evil over on the company’s official Discord channel.
As you may know, the game’s predecessor is available on Switch. That said, if Switch fans want to see the series through they will need to access a PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, or an Xbox Series X.
For more Nintendo Switch coverage — including not just the latest official news, but the latest unofficial rumors, leaks, and speculation — click here.
In a post titled “Wii U & Nintendo 3DS eShop Discontinuation”, Nintendo just announced that in March 2023 the online storefronts for both systems will be ceasing operations.
But in a practical sense the closures will begin a lot sooner than that:
– As of May 23, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a credit card to add funds to an account in Nintendo eShop on Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS family of systems.
– As of August 29, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a Nintendo eShop Card to add funds to an account in Nintendo eShop on Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. However, it will still be possible to redeem download codes until late March 2023.
In terms of people playing and enjoying the games they already own, Nintendo says:
Even after late March 2023, and for the foreseeable future, it will still be possible to redownload games and DLC, receive software updates and enjoy online play on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems.
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All of this is expected stuff. The 3DS is 11 years old this year and the Wii U ten, so digital store closures were always going to happen sooner or later. What’s shitty about these closures in particular, though, is that both shopfronts offered users the ability to purchase and then own many of Nintendo’s greatest ever titles, something you’re now largely unable to do ever since the company switched to a subscription model with Nintendo Switch Online.
The company saw this coming. When the blog post was first made, an associated FAQ had the following exchange:
Once it is no longer possible to purchase software in Nintendo eShop on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, many classic games for past platforms will cease to be available for purchase anywhere. Will you make classic games available to own some other way? If not, then why? Doesn’t Nintendo have an obligation to preserve its classic games by continually making them available for purchase?
Across our Nintendo Switch Online membership plans, over 130 classic games are currently available in growing libraries for various legacy systems. The games are often enhanced with new features such as online play.
We think this is an effective way to make classic content easily available to a broad range of players. Within these libraries, new and longtime players can not only find games they remember or have heard about, but other fun games they might not have thought to seek out otherwise.
We currently have no plans to offer classic content in other ways.
“We currently have no plans to offer classic content in other ways” is an incredibly shitty thing to read, because under zero circumstances is a subscription-based model an acceptable substitution to actually owning a game.
Especially wild, then, is the fact that not long after publishing this, Nintendo wiped that particular section of the Q&A from its site. Go and check it now and the “Doesn’t Nintendo have an obligation to preserve its classic games by continually making them available for purchase?” part is gone.
Nintendo, courtesy of a new Nintendo eShop sale, has been made one of the best Nintendo Switch games just $2 for all Switch, Switch Lite, and Switch OLED users, at least in North America. There aren’t many bargains to be had on the Nintendo eShop, especially if you’re in the market for anything made by Nintendo itself. Of course, this new $2 game isn’t a first-party Nintendo game, but it’s one of the highest-rated games on the console and a game that usually runs at $20. That game is Playdead’s latest release, Inside.
The puzzle-platformer debuted back in 2016, but didn’t come to Nintendo Switch until 2018. Come the end of 2016, it was widely held as one of the best games of its year. A few years later, it’s still remembered just as fondly. In fact, many will argue it was one of the best games of last generation and is one of the best puzzle-platformers of all time.
On Nintendo Switch, the game boasts a Metacritic Score of 91, making it amongst the highest-rated games on the platform, and while it’s no stranger to a sale, we haven’t seen it drop to $2 before.
“Hunted and alone, a boy finds himself drawn into the center of a dark project,” reads an official and vague elevator pitch of the game. “Inside is a dark, narrative-driven platformer combining intense action with challenging puzzles. It has been critically acclaimed for its moody art style, ambient soundtrack, and unsettling atmosphere.”
At the moment of publishing, it’s unclear how long this deal is available. We know it’s a limited-time offer, but this is all we know. Thus, it’s important to remember that it’s possible by the time you’re reading this, the deal may have already expired.
For more news, rumors, leaks, speculation, and deals as it all pertains to Nintendo Switch and Nintendo in general, click here or peep the links right below:
So you just got a Nintendo Switch. Lucky you! Or maybe you got one for someone else and want to help them make the most of it. How kind! In either case, here are some good things to know after you open up everyone’s favorite portable hybrid console.
While the Switch is pretty easy to set up and straightforward to use, there are some tricks that will make the whole experience even better, from increasing battery life to saving time clicking through the eShop. I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you’ve already gone through the initial process of booting your Switch up, making a user profile, and connecting it to a Nintendo account. If you haven’t: go do that! If you have, then do these things next:
Get a screen protector
Image: InvisibleShield / GameStop
No matter how careful or delicate you think you are, you will nick the screen, I promise you. You might knock it over by accident at one point. Maybe you have a cat who will swat at it. And if nothing else, you will probably move it in and out of the dock a few times during its lifespan, which can also scuff up the display. You can avoid lasting consequences to each of these incidents by purchasing a screen protector. Hori makes an economical but effective plastic one. There are a bunch of other options as well. Carrying cases are a nice way to provide some added protection as well.
Make an extra account
Even if you’re the only person who will be playing your new Switch, do yourself a favor and make an extra user profile. Bonus points if you set its region to Japan. Some games only allow one save file per account. Having an easily accessible alternative will give you more options. And if it’s set to Japan, it will unlock additional games and demos that haven’t made it to North America yet, including some in Switch Online’s subscription-based retro library.
Turn on Dark mode
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
Unless you love accosting your eyeballs, go into the settings menu and turn off the bright white background. It will be more soothing and also cut down on unnecessary battery usage.
Adjust the brightness
This one’s another no-brainer. Unless you are sitting on the beach, odds are you don’t need your Switch’s display projecting at full strength. If you’re in a dark room, turn the brightness all the way down. The auto-brightness setting works well for everywhere else.
Save battery life with Airplane mode
This is the third tip related to battery life, which should tell you how important it is to maximize the limited juice your handheld has access to. Want to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the park like that guy in the commercial? Turn on Airplane mode to disable unnecessary features like WiFi and Bluetooth. It’ll prolong battery life and is easy to toggle back and forth at a moment’s notice from the settings menu.
Remove the Password Requirement for the eShop
The Switch will make you type in your password every time you just want to log onto the eShop unless you disable it. To do that, open the eShop, select your profile icon on the top right, click through to your account information, and update the password-entry settings.
Download free games
Warframe is a deeply kinectic action MMOI you can lose yourself in for free. Screenshot: Digital Extremes
The Switch’s library of free-to-play games isn’t as deep as some platforms, but there’s still plenty you can get your hands on and start enjoying right away without spending a cent. Here are the top three recommendations in that department:
Fortnite – a battle royale shooter where kids yell at each other while showing off cool dance emotes.
Warframe – a slick sci-fi loot shooter with a massive campaign you can grind to your heart’s content.
Pokémon Unite – a super fun, very accessible MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena game) starring your favorite pocket monsters.
There are some other decent options as well including the platform fighter Brawlhalla, alternative battle royale shooter Apex Legends, and Hearthstone-esque card game Eternal.
Build out your library
Free games are great, but the Switch has a lot of other great experiences to offer as well. In addition to stellar first-party games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it’s also been loaded up with ports of blockbusters and indie games alike, as well as remasters and re-issues of older Nintendo games. The “Great Deals” tab on the eShop menu will show you the biggest games that are on sale on any given day, and the “Wishlist” feature will let you keep tabs on stuff you’re interested in and then alert you if and when it ever drops in price.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the Switch’s best selling game for a reason: it’s a must-have. Screenshot: Nintendo
Once you’re ready to throw some bones Nintendo’s way, you can’t go wrong with any of the games on Kotaku’s Switch Bests list. The lists of best-sellingindie games on Switch in recent years are also good places to start.
Back up your data with cloud saves
The Switch didn’t launch with cloud saves but it has them now thanks to Switch Online. Unfortunately, the paid subscription service will cost you $20 a year, but it might be worth it if you plan on investing a lot of time into offline games like Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey in the months and years to come. That way, even if your Switch is stolen, breaks, or otherwise becomes unsalvageable, your save data won’t meet a similar fate.
The Switch Online Expansion Pack still isn’t worth the extra $30, but with dozens of the best NES and SNES games ever released, the base subscription tier is worth trying at the three months for $8 entry point. If and when you ever let your Switch Online subscription lapse, you’ll have 180 days to renew it before whatever saves you had stored in the cloud get deleted.
Find some friends
Nearly four years out, the Switch’s social features remain critically underdeveloped. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist at all. While there’s no party chat (you’ll need to rely on in-game chat features or Discord), you can still friend other players and see what they’ve been playing. There’s even a trending section which will let you know if, say, your pals have all come down with a case of Mario Tennis fever. Nintendo’s console will let you link Facebook and Twitter accounts to quickly scour those platforms for mutuals who are also on Switch.
Buy another controller
The Joy-Con are very cute and come in all sorts of different colors. Unfortunately they also suck to play games with. A clever way to get more gamepads into people’s hands for IRL gaming sessions, they may cause cramping in your hands after a while and will almost certainly start to experience drift malfunctioning at some point. They’re fine in the beginning and serviceable enough in handheld mode, but you will not regret upgrading to a $70 Switch Pro controller. You can also get an Xbox Series X controller (my personal favorite) to work with the Switch by purchasing a cheap third-party dongle. And if you want a cheaper, more versatile option, the 8BitDo Pro 2 is still excellent and only $50.
That’s it! Go enjoy your Switch now. And if you decide to ignore all of this advice, for the love of god please still put a screen protector on it.
Across the country, folks everywhere are unwrapping their new Nintendo portable hardware, booting up their accounts, and trying to buy new digital games. But over the last few hours, per social media, the Nintendo Switch storefront known as the eShop has been in and out of commission. Sometimes it loads, albeit slowly. Other times, you can’t access the strangely laggy orange menus to rebuy Mario Kart 8 for the third time, alas.
Under error code 2811-7429, the message that stares back at you after some loading struggle simply says that the console is unable to connect to server and says that you should try again later. Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo for more information on when users can expect the service to come back. The official online server website says, “We are currently experiencing difficulties with our network services.”
For the most part, this shouldn’t be too disruptive when it comes to enjoying the console. You can still boot up whatever games you already own, you just can’t buy new stuff or download DLC and the like. Granted, you also can’t redeem gift cards, which is likely a bummer for anyone who received them as presents this morning. That’s likely a ton of people, huh? A lot of people who are surely loading and re-loading hoping that something has changed this time…oh, this will probably be a while.
But for the folks who had the prescience to gift or buy physical games, if not download stuff in advance of wrapping—well, you’re probably fine. Everyone else: honestly, stuff like this happens nearly every year, for at least one of the consoles or one of the major games. I know it’s annoying now and likely will be for a chunk of the day. The servers are definitely getting hammered. I guess go spend time with your family or something?
Or, if you’d like some good reading: our suggestion for the very best games the Nintendo Switch has to offer, and the cream of the crop sales that the console has going on right now. You know, for when the shop comes back.
Hundreds of Nintendo Switch games are currently on sale over on the Nintendo eShop. Last year, Nintendo put an end to Nintendo Switch games being discounted to literal pennies. Now, unless a game is free-to-play, it can’t be cheaper than $2. In the past, the title of this article would have had “0.99” or maybe even “0.10,” but these deals are no longer available. That said, right now you can get four pretty great Nintendo Switch games for just $8, which is still an incredible offer.
As always, these deals are only available for a limited time. At the moment of publishing, each and every single deal is still live, but by the time you’re reading this, the deal may have expired or been tweaked.
Below, you can read more about each game and check out a trailer for each game:
Gunman Clive HD Collection: “In the year of 18XX, the west is overrun by thugs and outlaws. A group of bandits have kidnapped Mayor Johnsons daughter and are spreading havoc across the land. Gunman Clive must rescue the girl and bring order to the west, then finish the fight in Gunman Clive 2. His battle against the bandits takes him all around the world and beyond.”
Phantom Doctrine: “Phantom Doctrine is a strategic turn-based espionage thriller set at the peak of the Cold War. Drawing on a wide variety of influences and capturing the subtle intrigue of classic spy films, the game thrust the player into a mysterious world of covert operations, counterintelligence, conspiracy, and paranoia.”
Urban Flow: “Urban Flow is a game about the subtle beauty of city streets filled with cars moving in perfect harmony. But such order does not happen all by itself – the city needs YOU to control the traffic lights and to make sure everything goes smoothly. That means no crashes, no jams. Everything will run perfectly – as long as you stay focused!”
Toki: “Toki sets off on a new adventure! The cult action/platform game originally released on arcade machines in 1989 is back with a super-simian new version, featuring all-new hand-drawn graphics and re-orchestrated music!”
For more coverage on all things Nintendo and Nintendo Switch — including all of the latest news, rumors, leaks, speculation, and deals — click here. In the most recent and related news, Nintendo Switch is getting one of this year’s surprise hits next month.
