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54 Games You Should Pick Up In The Nintendo Switch eShop Holiday Sale (Europe)

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15 hours ago

December 24, 2024

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54 Games You Should Pick Up In The Nintendo Switch eShop Holiday Sale (Europe)

The second wave of savings has landed in the European eShop Holiday sale — including little-known curios like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe — so we have updated this list with the very best of ’em.

The latest additions have a slightly different end date and will only be on sale until 6th January. Pay attention to all those flagged with the new date in the list below so you don’t miss out!

Nintendo has officially kicked off its Switch eShop Holiday Sale in Europe, bringing beefy discounts to thousands of games until 12th January 2024.

And yes, we said “thousands“. Indeed, there are so many games currently seeing a price cut on the eShop that it can be difficult to know where to start, but that’s where we come in. Below, we’ve laid out every game in the Nintendo Holiday Sale that we’ve awarded 9/10 or higher, so you can filter through to the cream of the crop in no time.

The list may seem a little shorter than usual for now, though Nintendo has announced that more games will be added to the sale on 24th and 30th December, so keep an eye out for more discounted delights in the coming weeks.

Note. We’ve given sale prices in GBP followed by the percentage discount, but commensurate EUR savings can be found across European eShops.

If you want to pick up some credit to assist in your eShop purchases, you can head over to the Nintendo Life store or see all available options in the links below.

So, let’s dive into some of the top discounted picks, presented below in alphabetical order…

£3.77 (-40%)

A Short Hike is a fat-free experience from top to bottom – or should we say bottom to top? It’s the kind of game that makes us sigh with happiness when we recall our time with it, and even having played it through to its ostensible conclusion multiple times, we know for a fact there are still things to see and do on that mountain.

It’s something of an apotheosis – a milestone in indie games akin to Cave Story or Spelunky. The very best bits of multiple game genres, stripped of all padding and bloat, mixed perfectly into a delicious video game stew that only gets richer the more you play.

An exploration in every sense of the word, A Short Hike is cute without being twee, challenging without being obnoxious, and emotional without being cloying. A landmark game for all ages. Don’t miss this one.

£32.99 (-34%)

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is the absolute pinnacle of the series and despite coming to Switch over five years after other platforms, this ‘impossible’ Switch conversion does very little to degrade the experience. Long-time franchise players and military aviation enthusiasts will be overwhelmed by the fan service at every turn, from craters on the ground to airplanes, liveries, callsigns, and emblems shouting out to previous entries.

We understand the genre is uniquely niche, but if this is your first foray into the franchise, this conversion is a perfect gateway into this rich, revered series. You get tons of content and an epic single-player campaign wrapped up in triple-A presentation that delivers the most comprehensive portable experience ever from Project Aces.

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£33.29 (-33%)

*Sale ends 6th January

Animal Crossing: New Horizons improved upon every single facet of the series imaginable. There’s more to do, more to see, more to change, more to mould, and more to love; fans and first-time players can find themselves losing hours at a time gathering materials, creating new furniture, and making their island undeniably theirs.

Every moment is unashamedly blissful, with excellently written characters that truly feel alive and an island paradise that gives back infinitely more than you put in. Back when Animal Crossing: New Leaf hit the shelves all those years ago and created a whole new generation of fans, many people were wondering how Nintendo could possibly top it, but here we got our answer.

This is a masterpiece that’s worth buying a Switch (or two) to play.

£7.99 (-60%)

While this turn-based affair might look, move, and feel just like a real board game, Armello is actually a completely original creation — and one that does more than simply doff its cap at the world of tabletop gaming. From the deep tactics of its living board game gameplay to the sheer charm of its worldbuilding and animal character designs, it’s a quest filled with back-stabbing, political power plays, and rampaging monsters that’s different each and every time you play. It’s at its absolute best when played in multiplayer, that human factor making for an even more unpredictable battle for the corrupted throne. The Switch version has had its ups and downs since launch, with some updates making things worse, but it’s apparently back to being in a playable state on Nintendo’s console. As such, you’d be doing yourself a disservice not to add this anthropomorphic tale to your wishlist.

£8.54 (-50%)

As an adventure game, Chicory: A Colorful Tale is quite sincerely up there with the very best of the genre. There’s plenty to see and do and a full completion run will probably take you 25-30 hours. The characters and their travails are rich and likeable, the game’s sense of humour is generally inspired, and it’s all very sweet without being sugary-twee and talking down to the player. It’s also an affecting little tearjerker that will definitely strike a chord if you make art, and almost certainly will even if you don’t – so long as you’re capable of pretty basic empathy. Chicory is simple to play but impressively long and complex, with perfect controls, performance and visuals. Throw yourself into painting the world and you’ll be left with a game that’s very much your own and speaks to you directly – a beautiful marriage of mechanics, themes and visuals.

£2.59 (-80%)

We really like Crawl, and we’d bet our collected stash of gold and wrath you will, too. A dungeon-crawling hack-and-slash affair with roguelike elements, one player is the hero trying to get through a dungeon and the others play as monster-controlling ghosts attempting to kill said hero and take their place.

It’s an everyone-for-themselves free-for-all, yet there are opportunities for frantic 3v1 co-operative play — a necessity when all the non-hero ghost characters must take joint control of bosses the hero faces. It’s great fun in single-player thanks to some aggressive AI, but that consistent danger takes on a new dimension when you and three of your friends are jostling for XP and that all-important killing blow.

Competitive couchplay doesn’t get much better than this on Switch.