Nintendo Switch has amassed a huge amount of great games since the console launched back in 2017. But what are the best games for Nintendo Switch available in 2026? Which Switch games are must-haves? What should you play first on Switch?
To answer those questions, we've compiled this ranked list of the very best Switch games that no Nintendo fan should be without.
Balatro is a roguelike for gamers who don't like roguelikes... and then everybody else on top of that. It utterly nails what it sets out to do, providing an instantly accessible, satisfying, and addictive gameplay loop that anybody can grasp.
It's an immensely enjoyable experience from the start, but as you get deeper in, there's really nothing else quite like it. Sublime.
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is two brilliant games for the price of one, and it not only gives us more of what we love, but gives us something that is visually, narratively, and historically deeper than ever before.
Taking the Ace Attorney back to the late 19th century, there's a bit of a learning curve that you'll have to get on top of to meet the game where it's at, but honestly, we couldn't have asked for a better version of the game we've been wanting for years.
Stardew Valley offers a chance to live a second life – one where you can forget the troubles of the real world and get excited over finding a particularly rare carrot.
This is the sort of game that ideally requires a significant amount of time to be invested; the enjoyment doesn’t necessarily come from the day-to-day actions, but rather from the general growth of pride, satisfaction, and sense of security as the days go by.
It is a truly magical experience; games can often be enjoyable but they don’t all manage to be as captivating as this. Fans of Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing will be right at home here and, for those who aren’t, Stardew might just surprise you.
Celeste is an exemplary amalgamation of style, mechanics, and character. A devilishly brilliant action platformer with enough skill required to excite genre purists and the speedrunning community, while at the same time featuring a breakdown of gameplay elements to customise and cater to all audiences.
While the game mechanically is great, if familiar, the art style and narrative are truly special, showing both a visual and emotional range and depth that will resonate and inspire. Celeste is the absolute peak of personal exploration and discovery on Switch.
This beautiful Switch remake of the classic Game Boy entry rebuilt everything from the ground up, and would be a good entry point for younger players into the Zelda series.
On top of the beautiful new art style, it added modern conveniences, a dungeon creator, amiibo support, and lots of little quality-of-life improvements whilst infusing every single square inch of Koholint – every secret passage, Piranha, Pokey, and Pig Warrior – with a level of detail and depth that totally reinvigorated both its timeless story and classic Zelda gameplay for a new generation.
If there's anything holding The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening back, frame drops may distract you from the otherwise absorbing gameplay, especially in docked mode. It's a little thing — and something smoothed out on Switch 2, thankfully — but with the heritage of technical wizardry behind the Game Boy original, imperfect performance is a dent in this game's otherwise glistening armour.
Disco Elysium's narrative and dialogue, which was already wonderfully compelling in the base game, was given a massive boost thanks to the excellent voice acting introduced for the Final Cut.
The gameplay features a host of branching paths for you to explore, and while the slow, methodical approach may turn a few people off, this is nevertheless one of the most well-told stories in any medium from the last few years.
The performance issues at the time of our review slightly took the shine off things, but even with them present, Disco Elysium: The Final Cut was and is a triumph and stands as one of the best RPGs available on Switch.
A remarkable breath of fresh air for a franchise that was getting a little stale, Resident Evil 4 is one of the best video games of all time and put the series on an action-based path away from the fixed-camera, pre-rendered, 'staged' survival horror of the previous games.
What you lost in nail-biting tension was more than made up for by the brilliantly chunky gunplay and impeccable progression through a story that continually ups the ante and adjusts difficulty automatically to keep you on the edge of your seat without pushing you off entirely. Ditching standard zombies for the intriguing 'Ganados' and draining the colour palette helped make Leon and Ashley's story distinct from previous games, too.
The excellent Wii Edition added pointer controls which worked fantastically well, although they made things a little too easy. Still, they were optional and there really aren't any bad ways to play RE4 on Nintendo platforms; whether you choose the original GameCube option, the friendlier Wii port, or the sharper Switch edition, you won't regret this European sojourn, in spite of the less-than-friendly locals.
The Switch isn’t short of games that have already taken a bow, or several, on other hardware, but Skyrim might be the one that most deserves another look from both hardy Elder Scrolls adventurers and absolute beginners alike.
Despite its age showing, with countless little cracks in its already fractured façade, it still delivers a palpable sense of space that few games before or since have managed. May its dancing northern lights never dim.
