// THE VERGE — HARDWARE & GADGET
Wii Sports is back on the Switch 2, and it rules
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Nintendo Switch Sports Resort is quietly one of the console’s most important games.
Nintendo Switch Sports Resort is quietly one of the console’s most important games.
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Wii Sports holds an important place in Nintendo’s history. It’s the best-selling piece of software the company has ever made, one that permeated culture in surprising ways, and its success helped rejuvenate Nintendo after a period of steady decline. It also kicked off one of the company’s most important and unassuming franchises. While subsequent sports titles from Nintendo never sold quite as well as the original Wii Sports, they’ve become a fixture for each new console, much like a new Mario Kart or Pokémon. And now the Switch 2 has its own version, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, and it’s the best so far.
You’d be forgiven for not realizing that Nintendo Switch Sports Resort is launching this week. The game is coming out during a particularly hectic time for new video game releases, and it’s sandwiched between two flashier Switch 2 titles in Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave and the upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Amid all of that, it’s easy to forget a game about thumb wrestling and bowling. But Sports Resort is also a refined and expansive version of the concept, and one that will likely become a constant over the Switch 2’s life.
The core of the game is the same as always: giving you a bunch of athletic activities — they’re not exactly all “sports” — that require some form of motion controls to play. That means swinging a Joy-Con controller to simulate using a tennis racket or tossing a bowling ball. There are 12 sports in all, and they vary quite a bit. The aforementioned returning favorites tennis and bowling are joined by things like skateboarding, thumb wrestling, and flying a plane.