Nintendo Direct February 2022: What to expect, where to watch, and more

Nintendo of America just dropped an announcement for its first Direct live stream since the most recent showcase in September 2021.

The company's signature video streams that explore new and expected upcoming releases for its consoles are always eagerly anticipated by fans of the platform.

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Nintendo Direct airs tomorrow

It has been confirmed that the livestream will air on February 9, 2022 at 2:00 pm PT. That translates to 4:00 pm CST, 10:00 pm GMT, 11:00 pm CET, and 3.30 am IST (Feb 10).

The livestream can be viewed on their official YouTube channel or the direct embed below:

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What to expect

Considering this is the first official Nintendo Direct of 2022, the Japanese gaming giant may have some surprises in store for fans. As the tweet suggests, they will focus on Nintendo Switch games launching in the first half of 2022, i.e., Q1 & Q2.

It's been five years since the Switch was officially launched in 2017, and the platform has enjoyed tremendous success ever since. With over 103 million units sold, it even outsold the original PlayStation as well as the Wii.

So one could expect to see:

1) New core IPs

Nintendo's developers have been hard at work creating new games for the Switch. Some ideas have already been touched on, such as MonolithSoft's new fantasy game whose concept art was made public back in 2018. Could there be a concrete announcement at last?

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2) New entries for existing IPs

Fans are excited about the possibility of brand new installments for their most beloved Nintendo franchises. Take the upcoming Kirby and The Forgotten Land for example.

But what's in store next? The Japanese developer has a number of dormant IPs that gamers would love to see revived. The adrenaline-pumping sci-fi racer F-Zero or cult-classic JRPG franchise Golden Sun maybe?

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3) Release dates for existing announcements

Bayonetta 3, Legend of Zelda BOTW sequel and Splatoon 3 are all hotly-anticipated AAA releases from the publisher without confirmed release windows. Based on past releases, one could expect something like Splatoon 3 to see a Q2 2022 release.

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4) Ports of third party games

This is by far the easiest prediction here. The Switch has seen the more third-party support than any of its predecessors, and that trend won't be dying down anytime soon, given how popular it is among gamers.

Looking at current ports of major games such as the Crysis Trilogy, DOOM Eternal, Dying Light: Platinum Edition, and Kingdom Come Deliverance on the way, the old Tegra X1 GPU powering the Switch continues to impress.

Perhaps something new from Ubisoft even? A Bandai Namco's Tales of Arise port? A late Borderlands 3 rendition to make up for lack of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands on the platform? Only time will tell.

On a related note, there have been rumors of the Batman Arkham games coming to Switch, so this may be a foreshadowing of what the Direct will feature.