The big franchises that finally came to Nintendo, thanks to Switch

During the six years of the Nintendo Switch’s life, we’ve got so many games that have never come to Nintendo platforms. By Nintendo using off-the-shelf components and being open and supportive of what comes to the system, we’ve seen things on the Switch we never thought possible.

It might be commonplace now, but for years it was just business as usual for some franchises to skip Nintendo systems. Whether that was because of Nintendo’s family-friendly image, technical or performance reasons, the Switch’s success has changed a few minds.

Dark Souls

The crushing difficulty of Dark Souls and the fact that FromSoftware had made precisely two games for Nintendo home consoles (Lost Kingdoms and Lost Kingdoms II on the GameCube), no one was expecting to see this franchise on a Nintendo platform anytime soon.

But one fateful Nintendo Direct later we got it, and there was even an amiibo to go along with it. FromSoftware’s output since has been golden with Elden Ring and Seriko – maybe we’ll see them remastered one day on a Nintendo system in the future.

Elder Scrolls

The Elder Scrolls has been around for some time, and rightfully so never came to a Nintendo console before Skyrim dropped on the system in its opening year. Morrowind on a GameCube would never happen, and Skyrim was released when the Wii was hot. Since then, we’ve even got another game, The Elder Scrolls: Blades, released in 2020.

With The Elder Scrolls VI now deep in development and Bethesda owned by Microsoft, there’s 0 chance of that game coming to even the Switch’s successor.

But maybe we’ll see another franchise from Bethesda break onto the Switch for the first time – Fallout.

The Witcher

A lot like Elder Scrolls, by the time The Witcher was making the jump to consoles Nintendo was busy with the Wii and planning the Wii U. You’re not getting something like The Witcher on the Wii and we all know about the Wii U.

Now The Witcher III on Switch isn’t the prettiest thing, but it’s been updated and supported for years recently adding a patch to allow cross saves to be easily transported to and from it.

Honourable mention: Grand Theft Auto (mainline)

Yeah, we know there’s been Grand Theft Auto games on Nintendo platforms before, even as far back as the Game Boy. There even was Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS, an exclusive Grand Theft Auto made just for the system.

Grand Theft Auto took off when GTA3 was released on the PlayStation 2, and it wasn’t until 2021 that we, as Nintendo console owners, could enjoy any of GTA games that made Rockstar into the rockstars they are today. The ports weren’t great on launch; in our review, we lamented that we finally got GTA on a Nintendo home console and got something so clunky and buggy. Luckily they have fixed it up since then.

Overwatch

Blizzard’s newest IP, Overwatch launched at precisely the right time for the Switch really, but a competitive online shooter on a Nintendo platform – no one thought it would happen. Then one day, it was there, and it’s been constantly updated, including the latest Overwatch 2 release. It’s one of those games we hope will keep coming to Nintendo platforms in the future too.

Portal

This is another one that made perfect sense to come to Nintendo platforms, sure it was on the Nvidia Shield which runs on the same chip as Switch. Surely that had nothing to do with it.

At this point we’re just here to port beg for Half-Life 2 on Switch.

Borderlands

When coming up with this list, many games just happened to be new IP launched during the mid-2000s when a certain purple Nintendo console was not selling, and then a non-HD one focused on motion controls was becoming popular. Unfortunately, Borderlands is not one of those as the first game released, possibly right at the peak of Wii mania.

While we’re talking bout 2K Games, add X-Com to this list.

So how about something different..

Bioshock

Another franchise born of the Wii era and then lost any chance of happening because of the Wii U. Not only did we get all three BioShock games on the Switch they’re all highly competent ports which is great because otherwise, sometimes that doesn’t happen.

Like…

Honourable Mention: Kingdom Hearts (numbered)

A lot like Grand Theft Auto there has been Kingdom Heart games on Nintendo platforms before, but they’ve all been handheld, and spin-offs. The mainline games for whatever reasons never made it to Nintendo home consoles until the Switch.

But also like Grand Theft Auto it was a little bit cursed, we got them solely as cloud releases which means here in Australia we didn’t even get them at all really.

At least we have Sora in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Crysis

To be fair, if anyone expected Crysis on the Nintendo Switch ever – you’d have yourself committed. What seemed like an impossible feat, all the games are now on the Switch and while not perfect ports they work quite well and have improvements over other console versions.

The “Can it run Crysis?” meme died when we got it on the Switch.

Nier

A game developed by PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix and not on a Nintendo platform? Not in 2015 at least, but then seven years later with the Switch being the console it is – sure that works now.

It wasn’t the original Nier game we got, but instead the much better Nier Automata

Diablo

When I think of Diablo, I think of my old PC with a my giant CRT monitor – not a tiny little gaming tablet with a Nintendo logo on it. Getting Diablo II on the Switch was a great start, and then we even got Diablo III as well. Maybe now that having Diablo on a Nintendo system isn’t so odd, maybe one day we’ll get another.

We’re forgetting some, and can’t mention them all like Katamari Damacy, Saints Row, Dead by Daylight, Valkyria Chronicles and the Metro games.

There’s still plenty life left in the Switch, so plenty more time for IPs to come to a Nintendo console for the first time? What’s next?