AO Tennis 2 coming to Nintendo Switch January 2020

Following Big Ant Studios’ great Cricket 19, the Australian developer has announced AO Tennis 2 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4 and Xbox One on 9 January 2020.

Coinciding with the Australian Open major tournament, AO Tennis 2 will be the tennis series’ first appearance on a Nintendo platform. As originally reported by Vooks in 2018, Big Ant Studios planned to bring their brand of tennis to the Switch following Big Bash Boom and what eventuated as Cricket 19. Although the original AO Tennis started slowly, plenty of content updates helped to refine the game into a solid experience.

AO Tennis 2 is billed as giving fans a “more intense experience of the Australian Open”, according to the press release distributed jointly by Big Ant Studios and French publisher BIGBEN. Most excitingly, AO Tennis 2 will introduce an entirely new career mode featuring narrative elements. This mode will introduce off-court elements – will this include Bernard Tomic’s Gold Coast nightclubbing antics? Beyond this, Big Ant has “implemented many other improvements and new features requested by players”. More details on the story-driven career mode and other new content to come.

Additionally, all shared community content from the original AO Tennis will carry over, including over 20,000 custom-made players and courts on top of the official Big Ant Studios creations.

Starring as AO Tennis 2‘s cover stars are the world number-one ranked players across the WTA and ATP respectively: Australian pocket rocket Ash Barty, and the Spaniard legend Rafael Nadal. They’re both looking in pretty good nick as seen in the AO Tennis 2 reveal trailer.

I’m excited to see what AO Tennis 2 brings; hopefully the high-quality standalone tennis title the Switch is lacking.