Animal Crossing, Zelda and Gooigi – The best of Nintendo’s E3 event

Published June 11, 2019

After a weekend of press events, E3 officially kicks off in earnest this morning. Nintendo continued its tradition of starting the show with its customary Direct streaming event. Aside from a brief Doug Bowser/Bowser Koopa mixup at the top, there was very little executive chatter, with the company instead focusing on trailers.

And that’s for the best. There was a LOT crammed into less than an hour here (a nice change of pace after last night’s Square slog). Though, as usual, it was a mix of new and old, with a few surprises sprinkled throughout.

Here’s the best of what Nintendo had to offer this year at E3.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – The big news here, sadly, is a delay. The long-awaited new addition to the Animal Crossing franchise has been pushed back to March 2020 in order to tweak the title. We got a nice new trailer out of it, at least.

Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Not gonna lie — excited about this remaster for the Switch. The new version of Link’s Awakening is due out on September 20.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 – I’d be remiss if I didn’t take this time to mention Gooigi, Luigi’s gelatinous clone. Still no exact date for the haunted house game, which is set for release some time this year.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics – In time for the upcoming Netflix reboot series, Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal is getting its very own Switch title later this year.

Contra: Rogue Corps – The Switch is about to get a whole lot of Contra. In addition to a post-apocalyptic entry, the classics of the series are being reissued on the Switch later this year.

Collection of Mana – Speaking of collections of beloved franchises, Square’s Secret of Mana series (including Trials of Mana) is getting a full collection for the Switch, two years after arriving in Japan.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel – The company closed things out with a pretty big teaser. The Switch’s first blockbuster, Breath of the Wild, is getting a sequel. Not much in the way of gameplay footage, or anything else, really. Just a note that the title is “now in development.” Better than nothing, I guess.