Read the rating before anything else
The ESRB letter is printed on every box and listed on every Nintendo store page, and on the Switch 2 it is doing more work than usual. Of the six picks here, two are rated E (Everyone) and four are rated E10+. The ESRB’s own ratings guide puts E10+ at ages ten and over, which is a line worth taking seriously when you are buying for somebody else’s child.
It gets starker with the games that are not on this page. Nintendo’s two other Switch 2 flagships, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, are both rated T (Teen)— so they are off the list entirely for a young child even though they sit on the same shelf, in the same style of box, at the same price. Our age ratings guide unpacks the letters and the content descriptors printed underneath them, which usually tell you more than the letter itself.
Why two of these picks are not Switch 2 games at all
Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Nintendo Switch Sports are original Nintendo Switch games. They are on this page on purpose, and for a child under seven they are the two best answers on it.
A Switch 2 plays original Switch games, which means the shelf available to you is not the dozen boxes with “Switch 2” on the spine — it is eight years of games, most of them now much cheaper than a new release. Nintendo lists Super Mario Bros. Wonder at $59.99 and Nintendo Switch Sports at $39.99 against $79.99 for Mario Kart World, and both are rated E.
There are a handful of compatibility caveats, and they run in one direction only: a Switch 2 game will not run on an original Switch. Our Switch 2 compatibility guide runs the four checks to do before buying, and there is one piece of Switch 2 packaging that confuses everybody — the Game-Key Card, a physical card in a physical case that holds no game data and downloads on first launch.
What makes a game work for a child, regardless of rating
They can start it without reading. A child who is still learning to read will not work through a written tutorial — they will put the controller down. Mario Kart, Switch Sports and Kirby Air Riders are all startable from pictures.
Losing costs them nothing. A race they come eighth in is over in two minutes and they can go again. A long adventure that sends them back twenty minutes is the one that produces tears.
The controls are simple enough for the hands holding them. This is where Kirby Air Riders earns its slot: Nintendo’s own store page says you ride and battle with just two buttons — press the Boost Charge button to brake, drift, and fill your Boost Charge Gauge as your machine moves forward automatically. A game that drives itself forward is a game a five-year-old can play against a twelve-year-old.
Somebody else can join in. Nintendo lists Mario Kart World at 1-4 on one console, Kirby Air Riders at 1-4 on one console and up to 8 on local wireless, and both Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Nintendo Switch Sports at 1-4 on one system. Which raises the question below.
Four players means four controllers
A Nintendo Switch 2 arrives with one pair of Joy-Con 2 controllers, which is two players. Every four-player number on this page assumes you have bought more pads, and that is the single most common gap between what a gift buyer imagines and what happens on the day.
If the plan is a game four people play at once, budget for the controllers in the same present. Our controller-counting guide does the arithmetic for every Switch model, and the Switch 2 accessories list covers the rest of what the box leaves out.
The one about online play
None of these games needs a Nintendo Switch Online membership to be played at home. Single player works without it, and so does everybody playing in the same room on one console. A membership is only required to play with other people over the internet and for cloud saves — which, for a young child, many parents would rather avoid anyway.
If you are buying for a household where online play is wanted, Nintendo sells an individual membership at $19.99 a year and a Family membership at $34.99 covering up to eight Nintendo Accounts. Our guide to whether you need Nintendo Switch Online sets out exactly what each tier unlocks, and our guide to sharing Switch games explains how one digital game can cover two children in the same family group.
If you are not sure which console they have
Three machines get called “a Switch” in conversation: the original Switch, the Switch Lite and the Switch 2. A Switch 2 game bought for either of the first two is a dead present, and it is not returnable once the code is redeemed.
If you cannot check, buy one of the two original-Switch picks here — they run on all three machines — or hand over a Nintendo eShop card and let the adult in the house spend it on the right version. That is a less exciting present and a much better outcome than the wrong box.
