Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour – Will it be worth the entry fee?

With Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, one thing that you cannot accuse Nintendo of is not finding inventive ways to explore all the hardware capabilities of their new generation console.

The game takes you to a gigantic museum of a Nintendo Switch 2, giving your tiny ant-like avatar all the different parts of the new console to explore and learn about. Starting from the left Joy-Con 2, skating across the slick touchscreen of the Switch 2 itself, and even descending down into the inner electronics, Nintendo illustrates what makes their console tick in a bunch of different ways.

Every feature has been explored in minute detail, whether it’s a new concept or something that’s also common to the Nintendo Switch and smartphones and tablets in general. So, you have the gyroscope within the body of the Switch tablet, and with the now fully adjustable kickstand (adapted from the Switch OLED to the Switch 2), that combines for a game where you try to set out angles as precisely as possible – turns out I’m damn good at knowing what a 30º, 45º and other angles look like. Or there’s a game of Twister for your fingers, where you have to try and put all ten of the digits on your hand on screen with randomised colour assignments.

Then there’s demos of HDR, pushing the maximum brightness of modern TV screens, of 120Hz refresh rates, or of HD Rumble and how it can replicate different feelings as you wave the Joy-Con 2 around. And every facet of the console’s hardware is detailed in informative pop-ups that, yes, you will be quizzed on later. Did you know that the Switch 2’s built-in speakers are the same modules as in the Switch OLED, but a mixture of tweaks to how they’re installed and software wizardry should make them sound better.

It’s an experience that taps into a very particular type of curiosity, saying that desire to know how things have been put together and what those features allow you to do, and that will speak to a particular kind of person. And if that concept gets you through the door, then there’s the allure of the high score chases, of earning medals to open up minigame variants and test yourself against those as well.

There’s a playfulness to even the simplest of ideas, such as when you play a level from Super Mario Bros. in 4K, but with pixels at 1:1 scale. You’ll see just how that entire level can fit onto a full 4K screen with room to spare, while dropping down a pipe to a sub-level does exactly what you’d expect and hope, slotting that screen down under the main stage. Simple, but joyful.

Yet through it all there is just that feeling that this could maybe have been a pack-in title. It’s obviously Nintendo’s choice whether they want to charge for this kind of experience, but this feels like an educational tool, almost. It’s something that parents can play through with their kids to learn about technology, making it clear that game consoles and phones aren’t filled with fairy dust, but have a different kind of magic making them work. And when that’s £8, I fear that it’s going to lose out to the immediacy of Mario Kart World or the countless other games that will come in the months and years that follow.

Nintendo Switch 2: Welcome Tour might not be an essential purchase for the Switch 2’s launch, but it still has that glimmer of Nintendo magic that could be well worth exploring, and there’s the capacity for this to surprise us as we explore later areas and experiences. We look forward to playing more in the next few days.