Nintendo Switch Sports Resort review: a winning return to Wuhu Island
Nintendo's Switch 2 sports game launches on 22 October with twelve events. Critics praise its scope and multiplayer, though boxing and basketball lag. Metacritic: 80.
Photo: Crisco 1492 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Trailer: YouTube · Nintendo of America · youtube.com
Critics' rating
Scores: Metacritic 80
- Platforms
- Switch 2
- Studio
- Nintendo
- Release
- 22.10.2026
+ Pros
- Twelve sports, including archery and table tennis
- Plenty of solo content with the Island Crown mode
- Strong local and online multiplayer
- Inventive controls, such as mouse-mode skateboarding
– Cons
- Boxing and basketball controls feel clunky
- Appeal wears off over time
- Minor online issues and a random cosmetics shop
Critics' verdict
Nintendo's most feature-packed motion sports game yet – a family and party hit with minor control flaws.
Summary of published reviews – sources below.
Nintendo releases Nintendo Switch Sports Resort exclusively for Switch 2 on 22 October, priced at $49.99 in the US. The setting is once again Wuhu Island from Wii Sports Resort. Twelve events are included: tennis, volleyball, bowling, basketball and golf, plus boxing, table tennis, archery and thumb wrestling, and the leisure sports power cruising, prop plane and skateboarding. A new Island Crown mode lets solo players work their way up the ranks against CPU opponents.
Reviews are clearly positive: Metacritic shows an average of 80 from 29 critics. Nintendo Life awards 9 out of 10, calling it everything Switch Sports should have been at launch. Game Informer (8/10) praises the approachable motion controls and online lobbies, while VGC (4/5) calls it the most feature-packed entry in the series and singles out archery, table tennis, power cruising and prop plane.
Criticism focuses on individual events: VGC finds basketball clunky, and Nintendo Life says boxing's motion detection sometimes falters. Game Informer notes the appeal fades at higher skill levels. Reviewers also mention minor online issues and the randomly rotating cosmetics shop.