Nintendo’s Switch 2 has a small handful of new releases in its launch lineup, but for the first few months after its release, the main thing you’ll be able to play on it will be your existing library of Switch games. And while Nintendo has promised reasonably comprehensive backward compatibility, the company is still working through the process of testing over 15,000 third-party Switch games with the new console.
With a week to go until launch, Nintendo has updated its compatibility support page with the results of nearly two months of extra testing. Of the “over 15,000” third-party Switch games, Nintendo says roughly two-thirds of them either have “no issues” or have problems that will be resolved quickly at or after launch. On the original version of this support page, Nintendo had only performed its basic compatibility testing on roughly 20 percent of all third-party Switch games.
Nintendo says that nearly all of the roughly 5,000 remaining Switch games will launch just fine on the Switch 2 but that “further tests” are “in progress.” The support page doesn’t say when Nintendo will provide its next update.
Nintendo has also updated PDF documents listing individual games that won’t launch, games that start up but have some other kind of compatibility problem, and games with problems that should be “addressed by launch or shortly after.”
Nearly all of the 122 first-party Nintendo games will run fine on the Switch 2, with the only exceptions being the Nintendo Labo cardboard kits that were made with the physical dimensions of the original Switch in mind. Additionally, some games that use features of the original Switch Joy-Cons will only work if you pair an external Joy-Con with the Switch 2.