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All The Most Important Nintendo Switch News Right Now

All the news that's fit to Switch.

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E3 2019 is behind us, but even the most devoted video game fans are bound to have missed some news out of the show. The event is just too sprawling to keep up with it all at once. Nintendo keeps its own announcements deeply under wraps and contained mostly within its Nintendo Direct presentation the Tuesday morning of the show, but other announcements are often littered throughout the week in its Nintendo Treehouse streams.

In case you missed any of the news and announcements, we've compiled them all below. You can also catch up on all the Xbox news, and despite Sony's absence, there was plenty of PlayStation news that we'll be wrapping up soon as well.

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Now Playing: Sequel To Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Trailer Breakdown | E3 2019

Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel Announced

The biggest announcement of Nintendo's conference was saved for the very end, when the company revealed the first teaser for a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The brief teaser video gave us scant details about the new game, and no clue about when to expect it, but it did drop some intriguing clues about the story. It showed Link and Zelda together, appearing to explore a tomb before something awakens. In the distance, Hyrule Castle starts to shake and rise.

Series producer Eiji Aonuma has since revealed that the sequel came about because the studio simply had too many ideas to fit into the downloadable content.

"Initially we were thinking of just DLC ideas, but then we had a lot of ideas and we said, 'This is too many ideas, let's just make one new game and start from scratch.'"

The teaser has led to plenty of speculation and theories about what it could all mean.

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Two More Nintendo Switch Models In The Works

Reports have been circulating that Nintendo is developing new Nintendo Switch models, despite the company staying mum on the subject at E3. A new report indicates that the wheels are still very much in motion, albeit quietly.

According to the report, Nintendo has moved production out of China and into Southeast Asia to avoid newly proposed tarriffs from the United States. That reportedly includes both production of the current model, along with two new ones. The first model is said to be similar to the existing Switch but with better components, while the second is a budget version with lower specs and a new look. Production of these models is reportedly well underway, suggesting their release could be close. The original reports suggested that the cheaper model could come out by the end of June, but that seems unlikely at this point. One or both could still be slated for this year, however.

Animal Crossing Given New Title, But Delayed

Animal Crossing for Switch was slated as a 2019 game, but Nintendo has now pushed it into 2020. It wasn't all bad news, though, as the presentation also gave us much more detail on what to expect from the newly-dubbed Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

New Horizons takes place on an island of your own, and you begin in a tent. You'll have more control over both your own look and the management of the society this time around, and you can enjoy the island lifestyle with a friend thanks to the addition of couch co-op. It won't support cloud saves, though, so this island is an island unto itself.

Though delays are often a bummer, Nintendo explained that this one was an attempt to allow its workers to have a healthy work-life balance. Given the recent spate of studios caught putting their devs through heavy crunch, this explanation seemed to be met pretty positively from the community, although Nintendo's stock price took a hit in the wake of the news.

Link's Awakening Is Coming This Fall, With Some Surprises

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is being remade for Nintendo Switch, and the company announced a fall release date during its presentation. The game looks like a neat modernization of the Game Boy classic, but one surprise is the new addition of a Dungeon Editor mode. It will let you collect individual rooms from dungeons and interlock them to make your own dungeon mash-ups.

To mark the game's release, Europe is getting a lavish collector's edition complete with Game Boy styled Steelbook case. The game will also release along with a new Amiibo showing Link rendered in the game's claymation-like art style. For more details check out our pre-order guide.

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Who You Gonna Call? Luigi

The centerpiece of Nintendo's E3 booth was Luigi's Mansion 3, the latest in the ghost-hunting adventure series. Luigi is back with the aptly named Gooigi capturing ghosts in a haunted hotel. The new trailer gave us tons of gameplay details, and our own hands-on time showed it to be a funny, engaging parody of survival-horror games.

A Smashing New Set Of Characters

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was last year's big Nintendo release, but the enduring popularity of the fighting game has made DLC announcements almost as big as game reveals themselves. At E3 Nintendo revealed a bunch of new characters including the heroes of Dragon Quest and the much-requested Banjo-Kazooie.

The Dragon Quest heroes actually count as one character, with the various forms serving as different appearances. Each of them is a sword-wielding character so the skin swapping makes sense. Banjo and Kazooie, meanwhile, are on loan from Microsoft as the two companies have gotten increasingly cozy lately.

Pokemon Sword and Shield: It's Going to Be Big

The first main Pokemon game for Nintendo Switch, Pokemon Sword and Shield, is dropping this year. Nintendo gave the pair of games their own Nintendo Direct presentation just ahead of E3, revealing the new giant-sized Pokemon mechanic and a bunch of new mons. We've also learned how the Raid battles will work, which lets you team up with other trainers to take on one kaiju-sized pocket monster.

Sword and Shield will honor the recent legacy of the series by working with the PokeBall Plus accessory released alongside the Let's Go games. That's not the only lesson it's taking from Let's Go, as we've also learned that it won't have random encounters.

To the chagrin of some fans, though, Sword and Shield won't allow you to import your entire collection of monsters from previous generations. And this may be the norm going forward into future Pokemon games as well.

Zelda Spin-Off Cadence of Hyrule Released, Is Great

In addition to the Breath of the Wild 2 announcement and more details about the Link's Awakening remake, Nintendo ended the week of E3 with the release of Cadence of Hyrule. This Zelda spin-off from the studio behind Crypt of the Necrodancer borrows that game's signature rhythm gameplay, but set to remixed Zelda tunes in the land of Hyrule.

And wouldn't you know it, the combination works. GameSpot's Cadence of Hyrule review concluded that the game wonderfully realizes the spirit of classic Zelda games and exploring the world is consistently fun and rewarding.

“Cadence of Hyrule is a fantastic Zelda game in its own right, even though it adopts the gameplay mechanics of another series,” James O'Connor wrote. “Beyond the aesthetics, it nails the satisfying sense of exploration and increasing power, and it revels in the joy of discovery, as all the best Zelda games do. It's an extremely successful melding of two great game series and an experience that makes you feel eager for Nintendo to do more interesting things with their major licenses.”

Cadence of Hyrule is now available on the Nintendo eShop for $25.

The Witcher 3 Coming To Nintendo Switch

The Witcher 3 is one of the most massive RPGs of the generation, and soon you can take it with you wherever you go. CD Projekt Red's critically acclaimed game is coming to Nintendo Switch, complete with its two expansions Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine and all other DLC.

The Switch version will have some visual compromises to fit, but CD Projekt has been sharing screenshots and it certainly looks like the Geralt we all know. We even got a good look at his glistening body in a bathtub. You could see the iconic bathtub scene while playing in the bathtub, but we wouldn't recommend it as the Switch isn't waterproof.

Check out our pre-order guide to see all that games in the package.

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Fire Emblems, Daemons, And More

Two more Nintendo-published games got shorter mentions during Nintendo's presentation. Fire Emblem: Three Houses had only a brief trailer since the game's release is already around the corner. You can check out our pre-order guide for more details. Similarly, the mech combat game Daemon x Machina got a release date trailer, pinning the game to September. Meanwhile, Astral Chain from PlatinumGames got a fresh look that shows it may scratch the Bayonetta itch.

For those looking for something to play right now, Nintendo Online subscribers can play Double Dragon 2, Volleyball, and City Connection in the updated NES library. Or you can polish up your skills in Splatoon 2 as you prepare for the final Splatfest, scheduled to take place in July.

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