Nintendo Announces New Mario Tennis Title, Dark Souls Remastered

Fans have been clamoring and speculating for most of the past month as to when the latest Nintendo Direct would drop and what it would include. Well, Nintendo answered the internet this morning with a Nintendo Direct Mini containing a litany of announcements, headlined by the reveal that Dark Souls Remastered and Mario Tennis Aces are coming to the Switch this year.

Mario Tennis Aces will be the long-running Mario Tennis franchise’s debut on the Switch, and features heightened gameplay along with some new tennis-styled garb that comes off rather classy. Waluigi’s hair looks pretty nicely coiffed, as well. The game will also be the first title in the series to feature a story mode, complete with missions and boss battles, since the Game Boy Advance days. No release date was announced, but expect to see the title on shelves sometime this spring.

Dark Souls Remastered marks the debut of From Software’s punishing/rewarding RPG on the Nintendo family of products. The Switch release will feature both the main game and the Artorias of the Abyss DLC, and will also feature up to six-player multiplayer with dedicated servers. Players everywhere will be able to die over and over again on Switch when the title releases on May 25.

Other items of note announced in today’s Nintendo Direct Mini included Switch releases of recent favorites like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (May 4), Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Spring 2018) and The World Ends With You: Final Remix (2018). The much-anticipated Switch multiplayer platformer Kirby Star Allies will land on store shelves on Mar. 16. They even snuck in the re-release of arcade fighting classic Art of Fighting 2.

The introduction of Donkey Kong to the Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle cast and the announcement of “Luigi’s Balloon World,” a hide-and-seek style Super Mario Odyssey mode, rounded out the major reveals.

The first Direct of the year wasn’t groundbreaking, but it did lay out a nice beginning framework for 2018, which we’re sure will be built upon as the year unfolds. Check out the trailer for Dark Souls Remastered below, as well as the full Nintendo Direct Mini itself.