Switch 2 signals rise
Two first‑party titles — Splatoon Raiders and Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave — were spotted with ratings on Nintendo’s European site, a concrete software signal around a next‑gen Switch platform. (nintendolife.com) Publishers are shifting support toward newer hardware — Level‑5’s DECAPOLICE dropped last‑gen support — and analysts flagged possible new Switch 2 cartridge sizes; over the weekend reports also said more than 2,000 Switch and Switch 2 games were on sale and 24 fighting titles (including Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1) were discounted on the eShop. (noobfeed.com) (nintenderos.com) (gamepro.de) (nintenderos.com)
Nintendo’s European listings for Splatoon Raiders and Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave now show final PEGI ratings, a small but concrete sign that both Switch 2 games are moving closer to release. (nintendolife.com) Nintendo Life reported on April 12 that Splatoon Raiders was listed as PEGI 7 and Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave was updated from a provisional rating to PEGI 12 on Nintendo’s European pages. The same report said Fire Emblem is still slated for 2026, while Splatoon Raiders remains dated only as “to be determined.” (nintendolife.com) Nintendo had already reconfirmed those release windows in February: Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave for 2026 and Splatoon Raiders with no date beyond “to be determined.” That left the ratings change as one of the few fresh public updates on either game in April. (nintendolife.com) Age ratings are a routine late-stage publishing step, not a release date. But they usually mean a publisher has moved past placeholder store pages and submitted material to regulators in a form close enough to ship. (nintendolife.com) The software picture is shifting beyond Nintendo’s own lineup. Level-5 said on April 10 that DECAPOLICE will no longer ship on the original Switch or PlayStation 4 and is now planned for Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and personal computer. (siliconera.com) Gematsu reported the same platform change and said DECAPOLICE is still scheduled for 2026, while Inazuma Eleven RE also added a Switch 2 version and dropped PlayStation 4. That is the kind of portfolio cleanup publishers tend to make when older hardware stops being the main target. (gematsu.com) Physical media is part of the transition too. Nintendo Life reported in April 2025 that a CD Projekt Red community manager described 64 gigabytes as the maximum Switch 2 cartridge size while discussing Cyberpunk 2077’s physical release. (nintendolife.com) That capacity matters because cartridge size affects manufacturing cost, download requirements, and whether publishers can fit a full modern game on the card. A bigger ceiling gives third-party studios more room, but it does not remove the tradeoff between cheaper production and fully on-cartridge releases. (nintendolife.com) Nintendo’s store activity points in the same direction: the company’s official sales page was promoting broad digital discounts across Switch and Switch 2 software over the weekend, while current store listings also show Street Fighter 6 on Switch 2 as an active eShop title. (nintendo.com 1) (nintendo.com 2) Put together, the clearest April signal is not a single launch date. It is that Nintendo and its publishing partners are filling in the ordinary pieces — ratings, platform lists, cartridge plans, and store promotions — that usually appear before a hardware cycle settles into its next software slate. (nintendolife.com) (siliconera.com)
