Nintendo at E3 2017: all of the latest news, trailers, and announcements

I did not attend this year’s E3, so my knowledge of what happened in gaming this week is based off my colleagues’ adventures in New Donk City, live reports from the exhibition halls of Los Angeles Convention Center, and their struggle to understand why some games bother to exist. And while some games looked intriguing, it appears my peers failed to inform me of a new title that I wholly identify with; a game that involves eating as many sushi as possible and flinging empty plates at your opponent.

Are you still here for this? Great. This is Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido. Nintendo describes its genre as “Conveyor Belt Sushi Puzzle Action.” I respect the specificity.

Rejoice, for E3 is over for another year, and we can all take a breath. The world’s biggest video games trade show brings such a flurry of news that it’s hard to stop and take it in before you’re whisked to the next keynote, the next conference, or the next big reveal.

It’s only now, with E3 over, that we can really take time to look back at some of the most impressive, intriguing, or downright bizarre games to get announced or outlined further at the show. Below you’ll find some of the trailers that are worth rewatching — or that you might have missed — from the last week.

Hori is a well-respected Japanese video game accessory maker that’s been pumping out solid fighting sticks, gamepads, and screen protectors for pretty much as long as such things have existed. But I’m sorry, Hori, your new officially licensed Nintendo Switch keyboard is a deeply pointless product, and I’m here to suggest some improvements.

To be clear, a Nintendo Switch keyboard isn’t altogether a bad idea — at least not in Japan, where popular MMO Dragon Quest X is coming out soon. It’s just that this one has some... issues.

After years of neglect, Metroid is back: yesterday Nintendo revealed two new entries in the iconic sci-fi exploration series. One, Metroid Prime 4 on Switch, isn’t due for some time. But the Nintendo 3DS title Samus Returns is launching on September 15th, and it’s not just the first proper Metroid game since 2010 — it’s also a return to the series’s roots. Samus Returns is a remake of Metroid II on the original Game Boy, and it’s the first traditional 2D Metroid release in over a decade. The announcement may have come as a surprise to many, but it’s far from a new idea for series co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto. “I’ve been wanting to create a 2D Metroid for a while,” he says.

I had a chance to play through a 20-minute demo that represented the opening sequence of the game. Just like in the original Metroid II, Samus Returns opens with the titular bounty hunter landing on the desolate planet SR388, and then exploring hostile caves home to angry aliens, including energy-sucking metroids. As in most Metroid games, you start pretty powerless; you need to seek out abilities like the morph ball and charge shot, which in turn help you open up new areas to explore. Samus Returns is a 2D game that features three-dimensional graphics, but the more detailed visuals don’t slow down the pace at all. In fact, Samus Returns is a much tighter action experience compared to the now-ancient Metroid II. Samus can now aim in any direction, and chain together attacks; if you time it right you can bat away an enemy and then immediately blast it with a critical laser shot. It feels fast and fluid, with a sense of immediacy that fits well with the series.

Up until the official start of E3 on Tuesday, Nintendo’s presence has been limited to appearing on the stages of other companies. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, confirmed with an appearance from Shigeru Miyamoto himself at Ubisoft’s press conference, is being produced by that publisher. Downloadable Zelda-themed Skyrim items appeared during the Bethesda event. And a giant Switch showed up in Microsoft’s presentation on Minecraft.

No wonder Nintendo didn’t bother with a big stage show at E3. Once again, the company opted for a prerecorded 30-minute Nintendo Direct stream, filled with announcements and gameplay footage.

E3 2017 has officially kicked off, and thousands of journalists, gaming industry people, and, for the first time ever, members of the public have flooded the Los Angeles Convention Center for the largest gaming show in the world. And virtually everyone seemed to be packing Nintendo’s massive E3 booth for a chance to get their hands on Super Mario Odyssey, the upcoming Mario adventure for the Nintendo Switch.

So it’s fitting that the booth is decked out as New Donk City — one of the levels in Odyssey — from top to bottom. Times Square-esque billboards line the walls, Donkey Kong-themed street signs pop out over the crowd, and crosswalk indicators are actually with Mario “?” blocks. On one side, you can find a Crazy Cap store (as seen in the trailer) handing out Cappy visors, while New Donk City flags proudly fly on the opposite walls. But until Nintendo decides to come up with some sort of virtual reality solution, the booth is probably the closest you’ll ever get to being in New Donk City. Aside from visiting the real New York City it’s based off, anyway.

Nintendo’s E3 press conference this morning dedicated a healthy chunk of time to Super Mario Odyssey, the wonderfully weird and wildly ambitious new Mario coming to the Switch on October 27th. We got a new trailer, but we also got more than 20 minutes of new gameplay shown off live.

Not only did we get a in-depth look at the New York-like New Donk City, but we met Mario’s new anthropomorphic hat, Cappy, and got a look at how the game’s new possession system will let you transform into countless enemies and objects throughout Odyssey. That includes everything from taxis and electrical current — so you can travel along power lines — to the iconic goombas and even a life-size T-rex.

This morning Nintendo showed off a slate of experiences coming to Nintendo Switch, including a new trailer for Super Mario Odyssey and reveals of new Metroid and Pokémon games. With a new console, new games, and new initiatives like mobile and subscription services, it’s shaping up to be a very busy year for Nintendo. Just ahead of the company’s E3 spotlight, I had the chance to talk to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé about a range of topics, from e-sports to 4K consoles. Here’s what he had to say.

Since its debut in March, the Nintendo Switch has largely been a success — especially compared to its ill-fated predecessor, the Wii U. The console had the biggest initial two-day sales of any Nintendo console, and the company predicts that it will sell 13 million units by next April. Today at E3, Nintendo showed off a slate of games intended to keep that momentum going forward, including major first-party titles like Super Mario Odyssey, Pokémon, and Metroid Prime 4, as well as third-party games like FIFA 18 and Rocket League. According to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé, the early success and future plans of Switch actually have a lot to do with the comparative struggles of the Wii U.

“We knew during the development of Nintendo Switch that we had a product that was really breakthrough,” he says. “But taking all of our learnings from past launches, we also knew that we needed to make sure that the concept was clearly communicated and I think we’ve done that in spades. And we’re going to continue to do that. And then we needed to make sure that a regular cadence of great content would be there. We’ve been able to do that to date, and with what we’ve highlighted in the E3 Spotlight and what we’re going to be talking about all week, we’re going to be able to continue to do that. That’s the key for us.”

Mario’s next big adventure, Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch, follows the open-world formula established by Super Mario 64. In Odyssey you’ll explore huge spaces, uncovering secrets and collectables, traversing everything from the rooftops of skyscrapers to icy underground caverns. I had the chance to play a 10 minute-long demo of the game here at E3, and while it introduces a number of clever and inventive new gameplay twists, there was one aspect that stood out the most: this game is really hard.

The area I played — New Donk City — is a New York-style urban cityscape, complete with tall buildings, yellow taxis, green parks, and properly proportioned humans who look bizarre standing next to the squat, cartoonish Mario. Much like in its predecessors, one of the big goals of Odyssey is to collect things. In this case, they’re objects called power moons, and you need to gather a certain number of them to move on to the next big area. (Nintendo says there are significantly more moons to find in Odyssey than the “stars” and “shines” in previous games.)

You know what they say — you wait a decade or so for a passable Metroid game then two come along at once. At least that might just be what’s going to happen based on Nintendo’s E3 announcements today, where the company first revealed Metroid Prime 4 for Switch and then followed up with Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS.

Nintendo was the last of the three major companies to present at E3 this year (which it did through its now traditional online Spotlight stream as opposed to a full blown press conference), and as expected, the focus was all about the Switch.

Want to catch up? Here’s what the biggest news was out of Nintendo’s stream.

Mario’s next adventure looks incredibly wild and inventive — even by Nintendo standards. Today the company showed off the latest trailer for Super Mario Odyssey, which follows in the sandbox footsteps of the genre-defining Super Mario 64, revealing an experience that looks to be absolutely crammed with ideas and potential.

One of the core components of the game is Mario’s hat, which has been turned into a sentient character named Cappy, who can be tossed onto characters, enemies, objects, and vehicles, transforming Mario in the process. The trailer shows everything from a Mario T. rex to a Mario tank to a Mario Bullet Bill. The levels themselves, meanwhile — which range from urban cityscapes to typical desert and ice worlds — look to be very dense with things to discover and interact with. At one point in the trailer, the game even shifts to an old-school, side-scrolling Mario experience.

Nintendo detailed what to expect from the first of the two DLC packs for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild back in May, and now we know when we’ll be able to get it: June 30th.

The first DLC expansion, The Master Trials, will include several new additions to the base game, including a new “Trial of the Sword” mode, where players will be forced to fight waves of enemies, but without any of their existing equipment that they’ve gathered over the course of their play-through. Completing the trial will power up the Master Sword further, allowing it to deal double damage at all times.

Yoshi is swapping wool for paper in his next adventure. At its E3 spotlight today, Nintendo unveiled the next Yoshi game, and it looks like a cross between Yoshi’s Woolly World and Paper Mario. Which is to say, it’s incredibly cute and cuddly. Outside of aesthetics, though, it appears to be more of what you’d expect from a new Yoshi game. Namely lots of side-scrolling action, filled with egg tossing and platforming. The game — which is currently just called Yoshi — is slated to launch on Nintendo Switch some time next year.

Take a deep breath: Nintendo is actually making a new Metroid game. At its E3 spotlight today, the company officially unveiled Metroid Prime 4, the latest entry in the beloved sci-fi exploration series. Unfortunately, outside of the name and the fact that it’s coming to Nintendo Switch, we know nothing about the game itself.

The new game will mark the first entry in the Prime series in a decade, as the original trilogy concluded with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on the original Wii in 2007. The Prime subseries debuted on the GameCube in 2002, and was especially notable for successfully translating the iconic, moody exploration of the original Metroid games into a three-dimensional, first-person experience.

A new Pokémon game is in the works for the Switch, Nintendo revealed today at its E3 Spotlight presentation. And unlike the recently announced Pokkén Tournament DX, the upcoming title is a proper “core” RPG Pokémon game from developer Game Freak, who has developed every title in the main Pokémon series since the original release of Pokémon Red and Blue back in 1996.

The news comes on the heels of Nintendo’s Pokémon-themed Direct presentation last week, which to the disappointment of many fans, saw an announcement of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon for the Nintendo 3DS, leaving the Switch with only an upgraded port of Pokkén Tournament from the Wii U.

When Nintendo officially unveiled the Nintendo Switch back in January, the company showed off an impressive slate of role-playing games for the device. One of those was the massive open world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 — and at E3 this year Nintendo is giving an even deeper look at the game with a brand new trailer.

Much like the rest of the series, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 takes place in a beautiful fantasy-meets-science-fiction world, one that stands out due to sheer scale. The new trailer shows off massive explorable worlds, and towering enemies and flying fortresses. It’s the kind of game that should be a great fit for Switch, where players can get in a bit of exploration wherever they go.

While most of Nintendo’s announcements at E3 focused on upcoming games for the remainder of this year, the company did give a glimpse at some titles for farther down the line, including a first look at a new Kirby side-scroller.

The new game — currently just called Kirby for now — features Nintendo’s ravenous pink puffball as he goes about his usual repertoire of devouring enemies to assume their abilities and floating through the air. But Kirby for the Switch seems to be built around a new mechanic whereby Kirby can also befriend his enemies instead of eating them, after which they join the player as either computer-controlled or multiplayer allies. Each enemy type seems to have their own moves for when they’re befriended, and in addition to fighting alongside Kirby, allies will be able to join together for powerful team up attacks,