Nintendo has unveiled its E3 2019 Direct. Following on from previous years, the company released a special pre-recorded Direct presentation instead of hosting a live show, opting for those segments to be hosted by Nintendo Treehouse.
The presentation, hosted by Yoshiaki Koizumi and the new head of Nintendo of America Doug Bowser, featured some surprising announcements about what is to come for Nintendo Switch over the next year. Among those announcements were The Witcher III, Age of Resistance – a title based on the Jim Henson franchise The Dark Crystal – a new collection of Contra titles including Contra: Rogue Corps and the return of Travis Touchdown in No More Heroes III.
Nintendo also showed off gameplay from Luigi’s Mansion 3, where Luigi will explore the mysteries of a haunted hotel while searching for his missing friends and unveiled a first look at the highly anticipated remaster of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which will be available from September 20.
Marvel fans also got a look at some of the characters in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order with characters from X-Men, Fantastic Four and Marvel Knights among those announced for the first DLC scheduled for an Autumn release. Also scheduled for the Autumn is the addition of Banjo-Kazooie characters to Super Smash Bros Ultimate, who will be joining the characters from Dragon Quest XI who will be added to the roster this summer.
The presentation concluded with a special highlight montage of even more titles coming to the Switch – including Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Dead by Daylight, Just Dance 2020, Doom Eternal and Stranger Things – along with two very special announcements.
First was a look at the next Animal Crossing title – New Horizons. In this new adventure, players will be chartered to a deserted island, where they will have to build their community from scratch in order to thrive in this new idyllic island paradise. Originally planned for a 2019 release, the game has now been delayed to March 20, 2020, with developers explaining that more time was required to make the game the best it can be.
The final announcement from the presentation was the revelation that a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of The Wild is now in development. A short teaser trailer showed Link and Zelda travelling together before they head into a mysterious cave filled with energy. No other information has been released by the company at this time, apart from the fact that this will be a Switch title.
Information on all the games featured can be found here.
Watch the Nintendo E3 Direct in full below
Words by Megan Roxburgh