Nintendo Direct September 2026: Everything Announced, Broken Down

Nintendo ran two shows back to back. Tuesday the 8th brought a dedicated Direct for The Legend of Zelda’s 40th anniversary, a good half hour handed over entirely to the series. Wednesday the 9th, a general Nintendo Direct running three quarters of an hour, focused on the rest of the year and a big chunk of 2027. Between them, more than fifty announcements.

The split was no accident. The first one was sitting on the remake people had been calling for a solid decade —yes, that one— and wrapped it in everything a milestone anniversary brings with it: a commemorative console, a symphonic concert tour, a museum, and a movie that finally has a title and a date. The second did the opposite: rapid fire. Announcement, date, platform, next, with two big reveals held back for the opening and the close.

There’s one thread running through both shows worth keeping in mind as you read what follows: Nintendo has stopped treating Switch 2 like a console still finding its feet. Almost everything announced is exclusive to the new machine or lands there first, the upgraded editions of original Switch games are no longer a quick coat of paint but products with content of their own, and third parties have started shipping their full catalogs instead of trimmed-down versions.

Everything is below, with dates, platforms, and what each trailer actually showed.

The Zelda Direct on September 8: forty years in half an hour

Some announcements you wait for, and some you’ve been waiting for half your life. This was the second kind. Ocarina of Time turns twenty-eight this year, the series turns forty, and we’ve spent an entire console generation watching Directs come and go without the one piece of news that needed to come. On September 8, finally.

The show ran exactly thirty minutes and followed the anniversary playbook to the letter: open with music, stop by the museum and the figures, drop the movie bombshell, save the main event for last. The difference is that this time the main event actually showed up, and it showed up enormous.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time — rebuilt, not touched up

November 5, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

Ocarina of Time coming back was close to a certainty. What form it would come back in was not, and that’s the story here: this is not a resolution bump or a port of the 3DS version. It’s a remake built from scratch that respects the 1998 design down to the millimeter and rewrites absolutely everything else. It is, literally, the thing we’d spent years asking for and had mostly stopped believing in.

And the best part is that it works. That first shot of Kokiri Forest, light filtering through the branches and the fairy circling Link, is one of those moments where the childhood memory and what’s actually on screen line up without a single wrong note. Because the trick isn’t showing what the game looked like: it’s showing what we remember it looking like, which is infinitely harder.

Eiji Aonuma handled the demonstration himself, fifteen unbroken minutes of play showing Hyrule by day and by night. That’s an unusual call and it says plenty: when a remake is shown with fifteen straight minutes of real gameplay instead of a two-minute sizzle reel, the studio is very comfortable with what it has. Watching him cross Hyrule Field as night fell over the map was the single best sales pitch of the week.

Link moves like it’s 2026, not 1998

The biggest change is in the controls, and it’s the one you’ll feel within the first hour. Link now jumps with a button, anywhere, any time, instead of relying on the automatic hop when you reach a ledge. Anyone who grew up hurling themselves off the edges of Kokiri Forest to see whether the game would let them knows exactly how much that sentence weighs. There’s also a roll and a sprint for covering long distances, so Hyrule Field doesn’t turn into an endless walk.

The camera moves entirely onto the right stick, fully free. Anyone who has gone back to the original in recent years knows that was where the game’s age showed most: the 1998 camera was a brilliant solution for a controller with one stick, and today it’s the exact opposite of intuitive.

What’s changed on screen

The visual rebuild is total. Hyrule Castle Town, Hyrule Field, and Kokiri Forest have been reconstructed with new geometry and foliage, and the game adds a continuous day-night cycle in place of the original’s segmented shifts.

Cutscenes are now fully voiced, with dialogue expanded well beyond the 1998 text —where there used to be a text box, there’s now a conversation— and Matthew Mercer returns as Ganondorf, the same role he played in Tears of the Kingdom. The soundtrack has been re-recorded with a symphony orchestra, and that’s where the goosebumps kick in: hearing the Hyrule Field theme with a full orchestra behind it, after twenty-eight years of Nintendo 64 synth, is worth the entire announcement on its own.

The ocarina, the microphone, and Threads of Time

The flashiest addition uses the Switch 2 microphone: you can hum a melody and Link plays it back on the ocarina in-game. It could sound like a showroom gimmick, but it’s the exact opposite: in the game that turned learning six notes into a generational ritual, being able to hum the Song of Time and watch Link play it is the loveliest addition anyone could have come up with.

There’s also Threads of Time, a system that keeps track of where you are in the story and which objective is next. It’s the obvious concession to anyone who never played the original: Ocarina of Time comes from an era when a game could leave you wandering for three hours without saying a word.

The Zelda Notes app joins in too, with daily achievement tracking, hint images for pinning down locations, an editor for writing and sharing ocarina sheet music, and a quiz with over two thousand questions you can retry by spending Rupees from the game itself.

What they left alone on purpose

And here’s the detail that proves whoever made this gets it. Transitions into shops are now seamless, with no loading screen in between, but stepping into the Great Deku Tree and out onto Hyrule Field keeps its transition screen. That isn’t a technical limitation: it’s deliberate, to preserve the threshold effect those two moments had in the original.

It’s a beautiful call. Any other studio would have stripped those screens out on principle, because in 2026 a load screen reads as a flaw. Nintendo understood there was no flaw there: there was the feeling of crossing over into somewhere else, and that feeling is half of a lot of people’s childhood. Somebody sat down and decided which ones to cut and which ones to keep, one by one.

The launch physical edition arrives that same November 5 with an embossed cover with metallic foil stamping. Yes, there will be a line.

A Switch 2 with the Triforce on it

October 29, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

The commemorative console lands a week ahead of the game. The Nintendo Switch 2: The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition carries a Triforce-inspired motif spread across the console, the Joy-Con 2, and the dock, in a mix of black, teal, and gold. There’s also a matching Pro Controller and a carrying case with screen protector in the same design.

And let’s not dance around it: this is one of the prettiest things Nintendo has built in years. No loud patterns, no giant logos; an etched motif, three well-chosen colors, and the Triforce exactly where it belongs. The kind you buy with no intention of leaving it in a drawer.

Putting the console out on October 29 and holding the game until November 5 is Nintendo’s classic move with commemorative editions: anyone who wants the full set has the machine at home before the cartridge ships.

The amiibo: masks with a Nintendo 64 look

2027 · Young Link and Young Zelda amiibo

The two new amiibo don’t arrive until 2027, and they unlock masks with the polygonal look of the Nintendo 64 original that Link can wear inside the remake. The gag is perfect: rebuild the entire game over several years, and the reward is getting to slap 1998’s blocky face on top of it. Nintendo knows exactly who it’s talking to.

Long before that, the Mineru’s Construct amiibo from Tears of the Kingdom arrives, dated for September 17, 2026.

The movie has a title, and the title is the news

April 30, 2027 · in theaters

The live-action adaptation is called, simply, The Legend of Zelda. No subtitle. And Shigeru Miyamoto casually dropped that once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand why it doesn’t have one. That’s the kind of line that guarantees two years of theories, and it worked: nothing that came after it mattered, that was the moment half the internet started talking at once.

It’s produced by Nintendo, Arad Productions, and Sony Pictures Entertainment, and it won’t be a straight adaptation of any single entry: it’s been described as an original story drawing on the plots, ideas, and concepts built up across forty years of the series. There was no trailer and no casting beyond the two roles already known.

Concerts, a museum, and an ocarina that actually plays

The rest of the show was pure celebration, and it was welcome. Nintendo announced a symphonic concert tour running through 2027 across Japan, North America, Europe, and Australia, with a setlist spanning the entire history of the series. Tickets go on sale this September and cities are still to be confirmed, so keep your eyes open: these things sell out fast, and hearing Ganondorf’s theme live with an orchestra in front of you isn’t a plan that comes around every year.

The Nintendo Museum is running a Zelda-themed entrance for about a year, installing a panel with the complete series timeline, and opening a photo spot with the Master Sword starting November 5. Yes, it’s a silly photo with a prop sword. And yes, we’re all taking it anyway. Its restaurant opens in the fall.

And on the merch table, the cherry on top: two ocarinas. An acoustic one, which is a real instrument that really plays, and an electronic one made by Hori. Forty years later, anyone who wants to can have the blue ocarina sitting on their desk and teach themselves Epona’s Song. There’s also a LEGO set with adult Link and Epona.

What wasn’t there, and why it matters

And even after all of that, when the stream cut out there was a sting. Not one new game in the series was announced. No follow-up to Tears of the Kingdom, no unannounced project, no date for anything that wasn’t the remake.

There’s a perfectly reasonable reading, and it deserves credit: an anniversary Direct exists to look backward, and slipping a future announcement in there would have completely overshadowed Ocarina of Time, which is what Nintendo needs to sell this holiday season. The sensible bet is that the new thing turns up in a general Direct.

But we’d been waiting forty years for this half hour. You can understand the decision and still walk away wanting ten seconds of a logo on a black screen at the end. Nothing more. Just to know the series goes on.

The Nintendo Direct on September 9: the heavy hitters

Forty-seven minutes, a fast clip, and a carefully measured structure: Monster Hunter Wilds opening to make clear that Switch 2 now gets the big multiplatform releases, Metroid Ravenous at the midpoint to hold attention, and Kirby closing it out. In between, forty-odd announcements with barely a breath.

Metroid Ravenous — the new 2D Metroid

January 28, 2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

The most celebrated announcement of the night, by a mile. Metroid Ravenous is the continuation of the 2D line that Dread picked back up, and it lands on January 28, 2027.

The trailer leans on the idea the game is named for: eat or be eaten. What it shows isn’t Dread‘s armored pursuers but wildlife: creatures hunting Samus out of hunger, not out of programming. The shift in register is obvious, and the game moves from the tension of a chase toward something closer to survival.

It’s also the most aggressive calendar move of the show. January is traditionally a dead month, and dropping a new Metroid there means Nintendo doesn’t want Switch 2 sitting empty once the holidays are over.

Kirby and the World Beyond — genuinely open world

Spring 2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

Nintendo saved Kirby for last, and the placement made sense: it’s the biggest jump in scale the series has made since it went 3D. Kirby and the World Beyond is an open world, not a run of levels with semi-open areas like Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

The key is how that openness connects to the series’ oldest mechanic. Copy abilities are no longer just ways to attack: they’re ways to move, and each one opens up different routes through the environment. It’s the logical way to build an open world in a series whose hero swaps powers every two minutes, and also the way to make exploring something other than walking farther.

Monster Hunter Wilds — the big multiplatform, no longer cut down

December 4, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

Opening with Monster Hunter Wilds was a statement of intent. It lands on December 4 and, crucially, it arrives with every content update already included: this isn’t the launch build showing up a year and a half late, it’s the game as it stands today.

Nintendo also confirmed that the Ascendance expansion is coming to the console in 2027, rather than being left off the way Nintendo versions historically were. That’s the difference between getting a port and being inside a game’s life cycle.

Final Fantasy VII: the end of the trilogy and the return of Crisis Core

April 8, 2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the closing chapter of the remake trilogy, hits Switch 2 on April 8, 2027, the same day as every other platform. Preorders opened that same day on the eShop.

The trilogy’s conclusion launching in step rather than a year behind is, in itself, a story about where the console stands. And to make the wait shorter, Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII– Reunion shipped the day of the Direct, with no waiting period at all: announced and released in the same minute.

Persona 4 Revival and Persona 6 — Atlus shows both cards

May 20, 2027 and TBA · Nintendo Switch 2

Atlus took a double block. Persona 4 Revival, the remake of the fourth game, has a date: May 20, 2027. And right after came the confirmation nobody was taking for granted on a Nintendo console: Persona 6 is coming to Switch 2 as well, though with no date and a teaser barely thirty seconds long.

The detail that matters isn’t so much what’s in the teasers as the gesture itself: two generations ago, Persona was shorthand for PlayStation exclusivity. The new numbered entry being announced in a Direct before it even has a date of its own says a lot about how the board has shifted.

Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave — one week out

September 17, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

The new Fire Emblem arrives on September 17, eight days after the Direct. At that point in development a trailer isn’t going to convince anyone, so Nintendo did the sensible thing and paired it with two long gameplay streams: one on exploration and one on combat, running almost eighty minutes between them.

Nintendo goes back through its own catalog

A good chunk of the show was Nintendo revisiting its own library. What’s different this time is that these revisits aren’t resolution bumps: nearly all of them bring a new mode, character, or content, and several come with a discount if you already own the original.

Pikmin 4 — Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy

November 12, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

The most complete revisit of the bunch. On top of the technical jump, it adds voice commands for directing your Pikmin and a new mode, Dandori Academy, with scored exams where the fun is in optimizing your route and squeezing the clock. Dandori was already the best idea in Pikmin 4; turning it into its own mode with a scoreboard is the obvious move.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 — Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

December 3, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

It arrives with Heroes’ Vault, a wave-based mode where you chain enemies and bosses while picking upgrades between rounds, and with a new Hero, Shimmer, playable inside the campaign. A 2022 game getting a brand-new character and not just a challenge mode is what separates this edition from a port.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity — Definitive Edition

February 25, 2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

It gathers up all the Expansion Pass content and adds a Calamity difficulty for anyone who already knows it inside out. There’s a discount if you own the original game, a gesture you don’t always get with these re-releases and one that was spelled out explicitly here.

Star Fox — free update with four-player Battle mode

September 29, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

A free update that adds four players in split screen on a single console, both for going at each other locally and for teaming up and jumping into online matches together. It also throws in three stages: Katina, Sector X, and Venom, each with objectives of its own.

Star Fox Adventures joins Nintendo Classics

Available since September 9, 2026 · GameCube on Nintendo Switch Online

The strangest Star Fox of them all —the one that’s really an action-adventure— joins the GameCube library the same day as the Direct. Slotting it right next to the update announcement for the new Star Fox doesn’t look like a coincidence.

Mario Kart World — ten classic courses, available now

Available since September 9, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

A free update with ten classic tracks pulled from earlier entries, several of them from the Super Nintendo era, plus new roads to link them into the game’s map. You can race them in Battle mode too. It’s content you could download the same day as the show, no waiting.

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort

October 22, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

It brings back Wuhu Island, the setting from Wii Sports Resort, and not just as a backdrop for the events: there’s free roaming around the island, with dolphins to follow, flowers to track down, and photos hidden across the map. It’s the return of a place a lot of people remember better than the sports themselves.

Kirby Air Riders — two amiibo

November 12, 2026

Two new figures to go with the game, dated for November 12.

Pokémon Pokopia — Expansion Pass, Part 2

Late 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

The second half of the paid pass lands before the year is out and focuses on accessories and customization.

What the third parties are bringing

This is the block that has changed most since Directs of two or three years ago. These aren’t adapted versions turning up years late anymore: there are same-day launches, complete catalogs, and series that had never set foot on a Nintendo console.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered

September 29, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

The remaster arrives in three weeks, and the Songs of the Past expansion is held back to 2027. Base game first and the new content afterward is the logical sequence, but it’s worth knowing before you preorder.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II — Royal Edition

2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

The complete edition of the second Kingdom Come, with all of its extra content, and no date more specific than the year. It’s one of those arrivals that would have been written off as impossible on a handheld two years ago.

Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 — all three the same day

October 16, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

Capcom isn’t staggering anything: Resident Evil 2 Deluxe Edition, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 4 Gold Edition all land on October 16. The editions announced are the ones that bundle the extra content, not the base versions.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis

February 12, 2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

A reimagining of Lara Croft’s 1996 debut, not a remaster of the original. The trailer was short, barely half a minute, and preorders opened the same day.

Professor Layton and the New World of Steam

December 10, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

The return of the gentleman in the top hat finally has a firm date after a long development. It falls right in the middle of the holiday run, which is exactly where a puzzle game of this family belongs.

Yo-kai Watch 2: Haunted Domain

In development · no date

Level-5 confirmed that the remake of the second Yo-kai Watch exists and is underway, with the explicit warning that it’s going to take a while. An announcement of intent more than of calendar.

Danganronpa 2×2

January 14, 2027 · Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2

Back to Jabberwock Island with a new mode, Slayhem, where the job is working out who’s lying among sixteen suspects. It’s launching on both consoles, not just the new one.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force GX

February 16, 2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

The return of one of the most beloved and least accessible branches of the card game series, with preorders open since the day of the Direct.

Romancing SaGa 3: Destinies United

February 16, 2027 · Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2

Another pass at the Square Enix classic, the same day as Tag Force, and available on the original Switch as well.

Metal Slug Ultimate Collection

2027

A compilation of the SNK series, announced with a forty-second teaser and nothing more specific than the year.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves

October 22, 2026 digitally · Nintendo Switch 2

The digital version arrives on October 22. The physical edition, on a Game-Key Card, slips to early 2027. That’s a distinction worth being clear on before you preorder, because it isn’t the same product or the same date.

Mega Man: Dual Override

Spring 2027 · Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2

Mega Man is back, and not alone: Proto Man is playable right alongside him, hence the subtitle. It’s launching on both consoles.

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

September 18, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

Nine days out from the Direct, with the whole campaign already wrapped. It’s one of the few announcements in the show landing before September is over.

Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Keepsake Sea

November 2026 · Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2

A new expansion for the life-and-management sim, with a seaside area of its own.

Eternal Anima

March 4, 2027

An adventure that jumps between generations: what you do in the past changes the present. The premise is one of the most interesting in the block, and the trailer showed little beyond that.

The smaller ones that sneak in

Nintendo has spent years using general Directs to slot mid-size productions between two big announcements, and this time the block had a few things with real personality.

Onyx: The Dark Grip

2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

The new one from Bloober Team, the studio behind the Silent Hill 2 remake. You follow a lone traveler through a deserted town, and the core mechanic is manipulating the environment to make your way through. Atmospheric horror rather than jump scares.

Cairn — with a free demo out already

Early 2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

Climbing Mount Kami, with the ascent as the one mechanic rather than as set dressing. The interesting part of the announcement is that it came with a free demo available the same day, something almost nothing else in the show offered.

Stage Fright

2027 · Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2

A co-op adventure inspired by escape rooms, from the team behind Overcooked!. You play locally or online and the whole thing is solving puzzles four hands at a time. Coming from who it’s coming from, the fun will be in how much arguing happens along the way.

Meccha Chameleon

Available since September 9, 2026 · Nintendo Switch 2

A competitive multiplayer game that mixes painting and hiding: blend into the scenery while everyone else tries to spot you. It launched the same day as the show.

Ondeh Ondeh Kaya’s Tasty Tale

2027 · Nintendo Switch 2

An adventure with rhythm mechanics and a Southeast Asian pastry aesthetic that looks nothing like anything else you usually see in these blocks.

The closing blitz

As usual, the Direct wrapped the third-party block with a high-speed montage. Nineteen games in three minutes, most of them with firm dates.

The standouts from the batch: 007 First Light before the year is out, Far Cry 3 and Blood Dragon together in spring 2027, Stellar Blade: Complete Edition on November 5, and It Takes Two on October 15. Plus one immediate release: Torneko’s Mystery Dungeon Classic HD, available the same day as the Direct.

The full calendar

Everything announced across the two shows, ordered by date. The ones listed with only a year or a season are the ones Nintendo left vague.

What the two Directs add up to

Watched together, the two broadcasts tell the same story from two angles. Switch 2 has entered its second year with a stacked lineup, and that shows up in three concrete details: games launching the same day they’re announced, big multiplatform releases arriving on time instead of a year and a half late, and series that had never set foot on a Nintendo console now handing out dates like it’s nothing.

The calendar is clearly lopsided. What’s left of 2026 rests on Ocarina of Time, Monster Hunter Wilds, and the Switch 2 editions of Pikmin 4 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3; the real weight falls on 2027, with Metroid Ravenous in January, Final Fantasy VII Revelation in April, and Kirby in spring. January, traditionally a dead month, opening with a brand-new Metroid is the clearest sign yet that Nintendo doesn’t want any gaps.

And then there’s the anniversary Direct, which is a different animal entirely. Forty years of The Legend of Zelda got celebrated the way they deserved: a remake built by hand instead of by spreadsheet, a gorgeous console, a symphonic tour, and a movie with an actual date. It landed clean. The only thing left unpaid is that there wasn’t a single word about the series’ future, and we’ll be collecting on that at the next general Direct.

And one last observation that’s easy to miss: out of everything announced across both shows, six things were already available before the day was over. That’s the difference between a showcase and a calendar.