Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour - Learning is Fun-damental
Let’s get one thing out of the way – yes, Welcome Tour should probably have been a pack-in game bundled with the Nintendo Switch 2 console. But it isn’t necessarily surprising that it isn’t. Though Nintendo have some history of bundling their tech demos with the console in the past (think Wii Sports, or Nintendo Land), the original Nintendo Switch kept the closest thing it had to one – 1-2 Switch, designed to show off the capabilities of the Joy-Cons – separate too. And though Welcome Tour taught me many things about the Nintendo Switch 2, more than anything it highlighted that when designing it, even when drawing pieces of inspiration from elsewhere in Nintendo’s history, that original Switch was kept front of mind.
Welcome Tour is an interactive exhibition that takes you on a journey through the Nintendo Switch 2 console (literally) to learn about every button, connection, and material that makes up the system’s hardware. After choosing your avatar from the exhibition’s entry queue, your tour begins on the left Joy-Con 2, where you’ll learn the basics of what’s on offer – collect stamps from hidden podiums, take quizzes on information gained by reading educational presentations, participate in demonstrations, and play mini games to show off what each bit of hardware can do. You’re then free to head on through the console-shaped exhibition and explore – but not quite at your own pace.
To make a very specific reference for a subset of East Coast Australian readers of a certain age, playing Welcome Tour kind of feels like going on a school excursion to Questacon (Australia’s national science centre – substitute in your own local science centre to make this story relatable to you). You’re having fun and learning about technology, but you’re also acutely aware that it’s educational. It’s that special, edutainment kind of fun. The kind of fun that’s installed on a school computer. Sure, you can enjoy that rollercoaster simulator, but only if every single laugh of glee you let out along the way is laced with a deep respect for the scientific principles of gravitational force that make the rollercoaster possible. You can enjoy some learning through play, but only if you fill out the worksheet first.
Welcome Tour’s version of a worksheet comes in two forms. The first is the stamp rally, which forces you to run around every inch of an area’s surface looking for the hidden podiums that highlight the locations of points of interest. These might be buttons, if you’re looking on the console’s exterior, or connection points or specific hardware chips once you’ve reached the console’s interior. Sometimes they’ll be obvious and you’ll be able to spot them right away, but other times you’re forced to go in circles, literally running across every inch of a surface until you can get the podium to pop-up and point out what you’ve been missing. It can get a little frustrating – and it’s unfortunate that the collection of every stamp in an area is what’s required to progress to the next part of the exhibition.
Worksheet part two comes in the form of a series of quizzes, each one designed to teach you about a different one of the console’s features. After viewing a short, curated series of informational presentations on the feature (like the HD Rumble 2, or the Switch 2’s 4K compatibility), you’ll then take a multiple choice test to measure whether or not you were paying attention, receiving a satisfying tick for getting every answer correct or some hints on where to find the correct information if you make a mistake. There’s no penalty for taking the quiz as many times as you need before you can get perfect marks, so how invested you are in getting things right the first time will likely only come down to how much of a general nerd or perfectionist you are. Some of the information can be quite dense to sift through and tricky to retain, even if only for the few minutes you’ll need to retain it to pass the quiz – so it’s nice to have the option to fail freely.
These presentations are interesting, though many of them are focused on comparing the Nintendo Switch 2 to its predecessor, as if Nintendo are trying to justify every one of their design changes. They can get repetitive, and some of them feel like they’re padding out the game’s length, but it’s genuinely fascinating to see under the hood in such granular detail. They’re also presented in a very ‘museum-y’ tone that feels a little cheesy but ultimately endearing, and that somehow manages to turn what could feel like a product demonstration into something that feels more like a reflective documentary on the console’s development – which is a big win.
And then, of course, there are the mini games, which do sometimes feel more like a practical exam than a way to simply have fun with the features. They can be a lot of fun – personal favourites had me using the Joy-Con 2’s mouse controls to colour in a picture quickly without going outside the lines, or playing my own game of Twister on the touchscreen with my fingertips – but they can also be a little punishing, especially if you’re striving for a top score. Getting through all of them will also mean changing up your play style a lot, and you’ll need to be ready to attach and detach your Joy-Cons constantly, or dock your Switch to a 4K TV – and some of the games can only be played using specific peripherals like the Pro Controller, so some people will be locked out of some of them entirely. There are ways to skip games you don’t have the equipment for, but I imagine it will be disappointing for those who won’t be able to get the full experience.
If chasing high scores in the minigames becomes a little too much, you can instead spend time in one of the game’s demonstration rooms, which usually give you a way to play around with a feature in a low-pressure environment. These are the parts that feel most like genuine hands-on museum exhibits, and if you’re just interested in really testing out the system’s features, are where Welcome Tour can really shine.
Because here’s the thing – I actually love museums. I loved school excursions. I, along with many others who will be purchasing a Nintendo Switch 2 console, think learning is rad as hell. For many of us, there’s something deeply satisfying about cementing your knowledge with a test, or marking things off a checklist to demonstrate and reinforce that you’ve explored everything an exhibition has to offer. I love that I now understand every design choice that went into crafting this console, and I now have a much deeper appreciation for each little finishing touch. I can’t wait to be annoying and tell this new information to anyone who’ll listen.
Do I wish that it had been bundled in with the console? Sure. I wish more people would have a reason to check out Welcome Tour and access all the fun information it has to offer. But I also get that not everyone who buys a Switch 2 will want to engage with something like this interactive exhibition. For some people, it’ll feel like school, and that’ll be a bad thing. I don’t think the Nintendo Switch 2 needs Welcome Tour to show people all the things it can do – they’ll find out in their own time. But if you want to be a huge nerd about it, and go a little deeper? There’s a lot to learn here, and I had a pretty good time discovering it.
Player 2 reviewed Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour on Nintendo Switch 2, using a code kindly provided by Nintendo Australia.
