Dormant franchises Nintendo could bring back on Switch 2

By now, there are a few dormant Nintendo franchises that are kind of infamous because they haven’t had a new game in many years. That said, it’s not like Nintendo never takes risks with smaller games – Clubhouse Games, New Pokemon Snap, Big Brain Academy, Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, and especially Emio – The Smiling Man are all great examples of the Big N bringing back dormant franchises in recent years. You could argue New Pokemon Snap isn’t a dormant franchise, and that’s sort of true – the point is, Nintendo is known to take risks with some of its smaller IP. It’s just that those risks usually do not include the IP that some fans want to see.

So today, we’re going over some franchises we could see Nintendo bring back on Switch 2. For the console’s first year or so, we do expect the company to focus primarily on heavy hitters. As time passes, though, we’ll most certainly start seeing some smaller titles based on long-inactive IP after a while. Nintendo commented on rising development costs a little while back, stating that they can make appealing titles even if they have a short development period.

One somewhat puzzling exclusion from the Nintendo Switch era is the Star Fox series. Though Star Fox characters appeared in the Ubisoft-developed Starlink: Battle for Atlas, the series has received no true game of its own since Star Fox Zero in 2015. Worse yet, neither Star Fox 64 3D nor Star Fox Zero advanced the canon in any way, shape, or form – they’re both retellings of Star Fox 64. This means the last time a Star Fox game featured a new story was almost twenty years ago in 2006, which is frankly difficult to believe. The on-rails shooter genre isn’t really fulfilled by any other Nintendo franchise, and there’s definitely some potential here on Nintendo Switch 2 with mouse controls. That being said, if it’s yet another retelling of Star Fox 64, we might have to pass.

Golden Sun is another Nintendo franchise that’s gone over a decade without a new game, though it’s developed by Camelot. You might recognize that name from the Mario sports games – indeed, it’s developed both Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Golf: Super Rush on Nintendo Switch. Camelot hasn’t released any games since Mario Golf in 2021, however, so they’re almost certainly cooking something for Nintendo Switch 2. In all honesty, it’s probably another Mario sports title. But Golden Sun is an incredibly solid RPG, and it feels like RPGs as a genre are becoming more and more popular with time. We haven’t seen a new game since Dark Dawn on the Nintendo DS. We’ll even take a remake at this point!

F-Zero definitely still exists in the back of Nintendo’s mind. After almost two decades without a new game, we got F-Zero 99 in 2023. Of course, that’s not the kind of F-Zero game that people want, but it’s still something! Prior to F-Zero 99, the last new entry in the series was F-Zero Climax on Game Boy Advance in 2004. Almost all of the F-Zero titles are currently available to play on Nintendo Switch Online, including F-Zero GX, which was added to Nintendo Switch 2’s GameCube library. A smooth high-speed racer sounds fun on the console, but it’s unlikely we’ll see it anytime soon. Not just because Nintendo gives very little to F-Zero, but because we’ve already got Mario Kart World and Kirby Air Riders coming to the system this year. Three racing games in a year might be a bit much!

Kid Icarus is another franchise that sadly is very unlikely to come to Nintendo Switch 2 anytime soon. Kid Icarus: Uprising on Nintendo 3DS was a fantastic game held back somewhat by its crampy controls, and it’d work like a charm with mouse controls. The game’s director, Masahiro Sakurai, is currently busy working on Kirby Air Riders, and has been since roughly April 2022. The only thing we could potentially see is a port of Kid Icarus: Uprising produced by a different company. Nintendo has recently enlisted Tantalus to make Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD and Forever Entertainment to develop Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, and it’s possible that we’ll see more ports from them in the future to fill the gaps between big new game releases. Even if we can’t get a new Kid Icarus game, a remake or port of Uprising would be more than enough! It’s a great title that everyone should play – unless you have big hands, in which case playing it will probably hurt after a little while.

The EarthBound franchise is an odd one. Shigesato Itoi, the creator of the series, has stated that he doesn’t plan on making any more new games. We don’t expect that to change at any point. But if you look at the success of games like Undertale and Deltarune, a portion of their DNA is rooted in EarthBound. In fact, “EarthBound-like RPGs” are more popular these days than ever before thanks to Undertale and Deltarune. It seems odd that Nintendo wouldn’t capitalize on this at all, not even with a remake. A new version of EarthBound in a claymation style has been wanted by fans for a long time. That doesn’t make it any more likely, of course – but something like that would help cement EarthBound’s status as one of the most influential RPGs of all time.

Punch-Out is a strange one, too. For a time, fans thought that the stereotypical depictions of the characters caused backlash towards Nintendo. That was probably true to an extent, but recent interviews have made things unclear. We think the most likely reason we won’t see Punch-Out anytime soon is because its most recent developer, Next Level Games, is too busy with Luigi’s Mansion. Luigi’s Mansion shifted over 15 million copies on Nintendo Switch, and it’s unfortunately safe to say that Punch-Out wouldn’t even come close to that number. Still, we’d love to see a new enrty sometime – in whatever way the developers would decide to go about it.

To wrap things up, we have Wario Land, which hasn’t seen a new entry since Wario Land: Shake It on the Wii. Again, this is strange – in a similar vein as EarthBound, Wario Land-like platformers have become much more popular in recent years. Nintendo has been perfectly content to continue creating WarioWare projects, and that seems to be Wario’s niche these days. Still, a new platformer featuring Wario would almost certainly go over well if it were made today. As we saw on Nintendo Switch, Mario doesn’t get nearly as many 2D outings today as he used to. There’s absolutely room for two platformers!

Once upon a time, we could have included Tomodachi Life or Rhythm Heaven Fever on this list, but Nintendo has announced new games for these franchises as well. We expect to see a couple more deep cuts in the coming years on Switch 2, but the specific franchises Nintendo chooses to work with are anybody’s guess.

Which franchise do you want to see come to Switch 2 most, and which do you think are most likely to actually happen? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.