Do Surprises Await?

Nintendo revealed this morning via Twitter that a new Nintendo Direct is on the way. Set to go live on 9/23 at 3:00PM PT, we can expect forty minutes at least mostly focused on the Switch’s winter lineup.

Its worth noting that winter doesn’t just mean the rest of 2021. The season technically runs through March 20th.

What games can we expect to see? Metroid Dread is just a couple of weeks away so that feels like a safe bet. After that the lineup gets a little sparse though. There are of course Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. There’s a long history of Pokémon titles mostly being focused on in their own directs though. A brief appearance is possible but more is unlikely. The same is true for Pokémon Legends Arceus, set to launch in January. Beyond that, we may get another peak at Mario Party Superstars, set to release at the end of next month.

December brings Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp and Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain so we may see those as well. That’s pretty much the entire announced winter lineup from Nintendo themselves though. With few major third party releases set to release this fall, it calls into question what will fill this time. If that was all Nintendo had to show, a full direct would be less likely. Perhaps one of their heavy hitters like Splatoon 3 plans to launch early in 2022. Or perhaps we’ll see some surprises slot into the final months of this year or early in 2022. Nintendo has a history of playing things close to their vests until near launch.

We’ll bring you more when the Direct goes live and we have more to share. Until then, check out a trailer for Big Brain Academy below.

Andrew Thornton

Andrew has been writing about video games for nearly twenty years, contributing to publications such as DarkStation, Games Are Fun, and the E-mpire Ltd. network. He enjoys most genres but is always pulled back to classic RPG's, with his favorite games ever including Suikoden II, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Phantasy Star IV. Don't worry though, he thinks new games are cool too, with more recent favorites like Hades, Rocket League, and Splatoon 2 stealing hundreds of hours of his life. When he isn't playing games he's often watching classic movies, catching a basketball game, or reading the first twenty pages of a book before getting busy and forgetting about it.