If I’m gonna be real, I found today’s Nintendo Direct to be slightly bizarre. There was a slate of ports for the system which, in all fairness, the Switch 2 audience most probably has not played. There was also a litany of remakes, including the Ocarina of Time remake that we all knew was in the works. Some of these announcements were legitimately strange, like Final Fantasy Resonance, itself a remake of the mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius that was shuttered in 2025. There was also a ground up remake of the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on the Japanese stream. This second one is a way bigger deal than you might think unless you are a gargantuan nerd, because Tohou Project is massively popular in Japan. If you were alive in the 2000s, it is extremely likely that you heard at least one song from this game before, even if you didn’t know it.
And then there were two jarring signs of life from two games that had been MIA for a minute. The first was updated gameplay from Kingdom Hearts IV, showing Sora fighting in the middle of Shibuya Crossing (sans annoying TikTok tourists). I am very much glad to see that the game still has a pulse. SquareEnix also took the opportunity to announce a collection of the previous games for the Switch 2 to hype people up for the newest release.
The second was the enhanced edition of Dragon’s Dogma 2 (which will also be available as DLC for the base game), called Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen. If you played the previous two games, you might see how this could be funny.
One part of this is because the expanded version of the first Dragon’s Dogma was called Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. This is generally accepted to be the most complete version of the game. So, in a Nintendo Direct full of remakes and ports, announcing a version of Dragon’s Dogma 2 with new content called Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is a tiny bit disorienting. The other part of this is that Dragon’s Dogma 2 ends in a bizarre (and one might argue undercooked) way that comments on the narrative’s place relative to the first game. While this ending is ultimately the entire thesis of Dragon’s Dogma 2, and I love how abrasive it is, I also felt that the main body of the game felt overly safe relative to the huge, confusing swing at the end.
But with all that said, good! I liked Dragon’s Dogma 2 quite a bit, and I’d rather play more of that than a bizarre-looking remake of Ocarina of Time. Dragon’s Dogma fans have been out here starving, and everyone who keeps up with news has believed in their hearts that this was coming. The substance of the expansion takes place in the snowy northern region of Norgon (as opposed to, say, “Southron,” which Austin Walker pointed out is a real word in both games). I will absolutely play that expanded content, and it looks like they are also bringing the game to the Switch 2 as a standalone as well as DLC to existing systems with the base game. But you gotta admit that, for better or worse, this is the most Dragon’s Dogma way you could announce this.
