Nintendo Switch Sports Resort is coming to Switch 2 in 2026, includes thumb wrestling

Published Jun 9, 2026, 10:56 AM EDT

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort follows in the footsteps of 2009's Wii Sports Resort, taking players to the idyllic vacation setting of Wuhu Island. Switch Sports Resort has 12 sports, five of which are returning from the 2022 Switch Sports: tennis, volleyball, basketball, bowling, and golf. The new sports are boxing, table tennis, archery, skateboarding, power cruising (jetski, in other words), flying a prop plane, and.... thumb wrestling. There's also a jump rope minigame. Skateboarding and thumb wrestling are all-new additions that have never been done in Switch Sports or Wii Sports games before.

Nintendo's sports series began with 2006's Wii Sports. A pack-in game intended to demonstrate the motion-control capabilities of the unique Wii Remote controller, Wii Sports included tennis, baseball, golf, boxing, and the all-important 10-pin bowling. It became an enormous cultural sensation that eventually sold over 82 million copies, putting it in the top five best-selling games of all time.

Nintendo never quite captured that level of ubiquity with the series again, but it's become a dependable mainstay of the company's catalog. In 2009, Wii Sports Resort added 10 new sports to the roster, including Frisbee, wakeboarding, and archery, and brought back the bowling and golf mainstays. It sold 33 million copies. Wii Sports Club, a piecemeal, free-to-play remake of the original game for Wii U, is best forgotten about.

Nintendo Switch Sports, which featured volleyball, tennis, badminton, soccer, basketball, chambara, and bowling, but controversially held golf back for a post-launch update. By the time it came out in 2022, Nintendo's casual audience had moved on, but it still sold a respectable 18-million-plus. No wonder Nintendo has gone back to the well.