Xbox games coming to Nintendo Switch named

Two games that were formerly exclusive to Microsoft will soon be available on Nintendo’s Switch console.

Narrative adventure game Pentiment will be released on Thursday, whereas co-op game Grounded will come out in April.

In what some considered a major change of direction for the industry, Microsoft announced in February that four Xbox exclusives would soon be appearing on rival platforms.

Until now, it had not been known what those titles were.

The names of the other two games remain unknown, as do their release dates.

The announcement was made during a Nintendo Direct, an online showcase for the firm.

Several other upcoming titles for the platform have also been revealed, including a new Endless Ocean game, Monster Hunter Stories, and a remake of 2010 Disney hit Epic Mickey.

Attendees were also surprised by the developers of the 2017 hit, Sonic Mania, unexpectedly announcing their latest game.

Penny’s Big Breakaway, made by Evening Star, is a platform game with a distinctively 1990s look.

“I think the 3D platformer genre at the moment is actually in a bit of a renaissance”, the developer’s director Christian Whitehead told the BBC.

“There’s a lot to choose from, even just on Steam and Nintendo Switch”, he added.

Evening Star was formed by many of the people who worked on Sonic Mania as independent contractors.

That game was a hit in 2017, picking up an average score of 86 on review aggregator Metacritic alongside a nomination at that year’s Game Awards.

Though a sequel to that game was highly anticipated by fans it never came to pass, and Sega instead released Sonic Superstars in 2023, made by Sonic’s original designer.

Sonic and Mario – the mascots of Sega and Nintendo – were considered rivals in the 1990s, but after Sega stopped making its own consoles in the 2000s, it began releasing Sonic on rival consoles.

Nowadays, Sonic games appear on Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft hardware.