The best free Nintendo Switch games

Pac-Man 99 is the next classic-turned-battle-royale. Like Tetris 99 and, formerly, Super Mario 35, Pac-Man 99 is a battle royale game based on the classic Pac-Man experience. You and 98 other players just play Pac-Man. But instead of competing for the top score, you’re trying to survive. Each time you eat a Ghost, you send phantom Pac-Men to other players, and if they run into them, they’ll slow down for the rest of the game. On the flip side, if they eat one while going for a Ghost, they’ll get a speed boost. Although it can get repetitive quickly, Pac-Man 99 is great for a few rounds whenever you have a little bit of downtime. Even better, the free mode is the best part of the experience. You can pay $30 for some extra skins and a couple of variations of score attack modes, but Pac-Man 99 shines with 98 other players on screen.

It’s not often you see a paid game make the jump to a free-to-play model, but that’s what Rocket League did in 2020. It used to be one of the best cheap Switch games at around $20, but now, it’s free to start playing. The usual free-to-play monetization practices apply, however. Rocket League sells a battle pass, and there are various different skins you can purchase. However, the move to a free-to-play model has some upsides, too. Rocket League now has full cross-platform support, allowing you to team up with players on other consoles, as well as continue progressing regardless of the system you’re playing on. Thankfully, that’s really all that changed with the change in monetization. Rocket League is still the same bombastic, tire-burning sports game that it was before. And it pairs perfectly with the Switch. Jumping in and out of games, particularly in handheld mode, is a treat. If there’s any free Nintendo Switch game you should have, it’s Rocket League. 

Dauntless is very similar to Monster Hunter. In it, you play as a Slayer, a group of surviving humans after creatures known as Behemoths were released on Earth. Either alone or with a group of friends, you set out over the desolate landscape to hunt Behemoths, gathering materials to craft weapons and armor along the way. It’s not just another free-to-play game copying the formula of an established franchise, however. Dauntless was developed by a group of designers from Riot Games, BioWare, Blizzard, and Capcom, and that talent shows in the final product. Although Dauntless is totally free, it feels like a full AAA experience, which is all the more impressive on Switch.

Like Super Kirby Clash, Pokémon Unite is another “free-to-start” game from Nintendo. This spinoff is the first time the series, and Nintendo as a whole, has attempted to breach the MOBA genre. This is normally a very deep and intimidating genre, dominated by the likes of League of Legends and DOTA 2. However, Pokémon Unite makes things very approachable for newcomers. You play on teams of five as your favorite pocket monsters, with 36 currently in the game, in 10-minute matches where the team with the most points at the end wins. You start off at your base level Pokémon, but level up and evolve, learning new moves and buying items to improve your stats to fight the enemy team and wild creatures on the map.

Smite is another game from Hi-Rez Studios, the same developer behind Paladins. Unlike Paladins, which is a MOBA-shooter, Smite is a straight-up MOBA. Like similar games, Smite features five-versus-five online battles in a large map, where you must push past your opponent’s defenses to defeat the Titan. Smite is very competitive, though. The Smite World Championship, hosted annually by Hi-Rez Studios, has been running since 2015 and paying out nearly $1 million in prizes every year.