We recently did a list of the best PlayStation 5 exclusives, and if you know anything about websites it should’ve been blazingly obvious that we were going to be doing the same thing for the Switch and the Xbox Series X|S and whatever other gaming devices might be relevant today. (There’s something called a “Quest,” right?) Today is the Switch’s turn, and once again we’ve got to explain ourselves a little here. When people talk about “exclusives” when it comes to videogame consoles, they’re almost always talking exclusively about consoles. Meaning games that exist on only one single console. They can totally be playable on computers, because that’s a different thing than a box that sits in your living room and plugs into your TV, but you won’t be able to play them on both the Switch and, say, an Xbox. This kind of list is generally easier with Nintendo consoles like the Switch, because Nintendo routinely makes the best games for their own systems, and Nintendo doesn’t make games for any other hardware. Only one game on this list can be played on a PC. (There is a second game that’s technically on two different consoles, but they’re both Nintendo systems, and the other one was retired when the Switch came out, so I think it’s safe to consider that one special game an exclusive.) But if you’re looking for the best Nintendo Switch exclusives, you’ll find the answers below. And when you’re done here, go check out our picks for the best Nintendo Switch games of 2023 and the best Nintendo Switch games of all time.
12. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
This special enhanced edition of the Wii U smash was one of the first big tests for the Switch. How would a game initially built to be played exclusively on a console strapped to a TV translate to a system made to be taken anywhere? The answer: about as well as anybody could expect. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe collected every scrap of bonus content for one of the best games of the decade, added a nostalgic return to a classic battle mode, and made all of it perfectly portable thanks to the Switch’s unique capabilities. If anybody was worried that Breath of the Wild would be a one-hit wonder for the Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe gave them hope.—Garrett Martin
11. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Nintendo’s latest violent ode to nostalgia might have more pure content than any other game we’ve seen this decade. It’s got this many characters, and that many stages, and all those other characters who pop up as trophies and spirits (whatever those are). Music? This baby’s got every song you’ve ever heard in a videogame squeezed up inside of it. If you get stressed out when faced with a decision, a fully unlocked Smash Bros. Ultimate character selection screen will probably turn your hair white. Of course a game isn’t good because there’s a lot of it—it’s good because it’s, you know, good. And as a casual Smash player since the very first game came out, I have definitely enjoyed my time inflicting brutal punishment upon some of the most lovable videogame characters ever devised. Ultimate is about as replayable as videogames get.—Garrett Martin
10. Baba Is You
Arvi Teikari’s ingenious puzzler Baba Is You churns spatial awareness and the building blocks of communication together to form one of the most difficult yet enriching games of the year. It might have Sokoban at its core—yes, you push and slide objects across the screen—but instead of moving boxes around to find an exit, you’re moving words and symbols that can redefine the nature and behavior of everything else on the screen. The title might make no sense before you play it, but it’s actually the equation that drives the heart of the game: Baba is you, as long as the words “Baba,” “is” and “you” are arranged in the right order. From that basic premise it explodes out into a series of widely varied, almost never simple brainteasers that will keep you engrossed for days, if not weeks.—Garrett Martin
9. Splatoon 2
Some have dinged this one a bit (including our own review) for sticking too closely to the formula established by the Wii U original. It’s true that, at first, it can feel more like a remake than a sequel. In time though its unique attributes become more apparent, from the variety of weapons, to the new maps, to the various multiplayer modes that supplement the standard Turf War. Splatoon 2 might not break a lot of ground but it’s one of the most purely fun games to come out for any system in years.—Garrett Martin
8. Metroid Prime Remastered
I’m always reluctant to put remasters and remakes on lists like this, but this year’s surprise release of Metroid Prime Remastered deserves recognition. The original is one of the two or three best Metroid games ever made, and an all-time Nintendo classic, and the fact that the remaster only needs to make a few minor changes to upgrade it for the modern day only underscores how excellent its foundations are. This is a vital piece of gaming history that has barely aged a day in over 20 years, and still the best game I’ve played on the Switch in 2023.—Garrett Martin
7. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
One of Super Mario Bros. Wonder ’s major new additions to the Mario canon is the Wonder Flower. It’s a big blue bouncing flower that triggers a psychedelic hurry-up state called a Wonder Effect that warps the level and its characters in weird and unpredictable ways. Wonder Flowers can incite some of the most hallucinatory and memorable sequences in recent Super Mario history, which help make Wonder one of the most unique games in the series’ long history. A perfect example: in one early level, the Wonder Flower turns a legion of Piranha Plants—those Venus Mario-traps that pop out of vines in the Mushroom Kingdom—into a veritable chorus line right out of musical theater, with an elaborate song- and-dance routine that’s one of the most unexpected and charming things I’ve seen in a game in years. Moments and details like these have made Wonder an unpredictably refreshing new spin on the most basic Mario-isms, and the first side-scrolling Mario game that could be considered genuinely revelatory in about 30 years.— Garrett Martin
6. Fire Emblem: Three Houses
This might be the best game I know I’ll never actually finish. The latest Fire Emblem game is massive. That’s no surprise—Fire Emblem games always eat up a lot of time—but Three Houses has fully established the relatively new social aspects of the series as a true equal to the tactical battles that have always been the main draw. I’ve spent at least as much time teaching my students, learning about their lives and personalities, and trying to make them happy as I have on the battlefield—and no, that is not in any way a problem. With class consciousness as a narrative backdrop, Three Houses is less of a straight-forward story than an impressionistic look at a large crew of characters united by tradition, obligation, and the need to save society as they know it—maybe while reforming it. It’s a smart, charming, sometimes brutal experience, and one whose 80 hours length per house guarantees I’ll never fully experience it. One house is good enough for me—unless every publisher in the business wants to take pity on us and not release any other games until, let’s say, December.—Garrett Martin
5. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Tears of the Kingdom looks like Breath of the Wild, sounds like Breath of the Wild, and even plays like Breath of the Wild, and yet it’s so fundamentally different that it’s almost impossible to confuse the two. The sequel to our favorite game of the last decade expands greatly on the original’s map, introducing both upper and lower levels to trek through, and also introduces an Erector Set-style construction toolset that gives you an extreme amount of freedom to experiment and explore. Many love it more than Breath because of that freedom, while others (uh, like me) think it overcomplicates the elegant, immersive beauty of Breath just a little too much. Still, it’s an absolutely amazing Zelda, one of the best games for the Switch, and a clear-cut favorite of the best game of 2023.—Garrett Martin
4. Metroid Dread
Samus’ return to two dimensions restores something essential to the appeal of the original Metroid, and it’s right there in the title: yep, we’re talking about dread. And not just the claustrophobia or paranoia you expect when you’re the only living thing not trying to kill you on the whole damn planet, but legitimate terror as you’re being hunted by an unbeatable foe that will immediately kill you once caught. Being stalked by an E.M.M.I. is almost as frightening as your first encounter with a Metroid in Tourian back on the NES, injecting true horror into a game that ably captures the magic at the heart of this series. Metroid Dread gives the people what they want, resulting in the best Metroid game since the Prime series.—Garrett Martin
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Originally Animal Crossing applied almost no pressure to the player. You could pay off your house, or not, and that was pretty much it. Much has changed since 2002, though. Almost everything you do in New Horizons has the residue of productivity on it, even if you’re trying to be as aimless as possible. Instead of playing games within this game, the only way to not accidentally be productive is to literally do nothing—to sit in a chair, or lay on a hammock, and put the controller down. To sit quietly with your own thoughts—thoughts that exist fully outside of your Nintendo Switch.
The fact that you can do that, though, is an example of the confidence within Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Nintendo might have ramped up the numbers and the to-do lists, all the tasks and chores that make New Horizons feel like one of the last outposts of whatever notions of normalcy we might’ve once had, but you can still tune that out and live within your own head for a spell. That head might naturally drift towards the hellishly contorted world we live in, and not the delightfully cartoonish one of Animal Crossing, but escapism is overrated anyway. I’d rather worry about every aspect of modern living while quietly reflecting on the rhythmic roar of a videogame ocean than while sitting slackjawed in a living room I won’t ever be able to leave again. Give me these New Horizons—rigid, commercial, and staid—over the chaos of the last decade.—Garrett Martin
2. Super Mario Odyssey
Bicker about what makes up a “core” Mario game all you want. All I know is that Super Mario Odyssey is one of the two or three best games to ever have that lovable little guy’s name in the title. It is every bit as powerful as Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario Bros. 3, the previous high-water marks for Nintendo’s mascot, and for the platformer genre in general. Odyssey is an overwhelming cornucopia of pure joy, full of the kind of freedom typically found in open world games but with a constant chain of clear objectives and attainable goals pulling you ever deeper into its roster of candy-colored kingdoms. It’s a perfect bookmark to Nintendo’s other major Switch game of 2017, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: both recraft a classic cornerstone of the entire medium into an effortlessly enjoyable and crucially contemporary masterpiece that unites all eras of gaming history.—Garrett Martin
1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
[Breath of the Wild is] a fresh approach to what Zelda games have striven for since the very beginning. The depth you expect, the open exploration and constant sense of discovery the series is known for, are here in perhaps greater effect than ever before, but with the systems and mechanics that drive the moment-to-moment action heavily overhauled. The result is a Zelda that feels unmistakably like a Zelda, but that also breathes new life into the venerable classic.—Garrett Martin