Nintendo Direct June 2024: all the news and trailers

After years of playing second fiddle to Link in her own franchise, Princess Zelda is finally getting a video game of her own this fall.

During today’s Direct presentation, Nintendo revealed The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the franchise’s first game to follow as Princess Zelda herself embarks on an adventure to save the world from destruction. After Ganon bests Link in battle, Zelda is left to her own devices to battle hordes of monsters that descend upon the game’s take on Hyrule (which seems heavily inspired by 2019’s Link’s Awakening remake).

Nintendo finally shared gameplay footage of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond during Tuesday’s Nintendo Direct. The brief video was classic Metroid Prime, featuring intense first-person gunfighting and scanning stuff in the environment. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a little while until we can play it for ourselves, as the company gave a vague 2025 release window for the title.

We’ve been waiting a very long time for any scraps of information about the next entry in the beloved Metroid Prime series. The game was first revealed on June 13th, 2017, with just a logo, and when Nintendo announced that it was rebooting the title in January 2019, its video didn’t contain any footage of the game itself. When it said it was restarting development, Nintendo revealed that the original developers of the series, Retro Studios, would be taking over.

To start off Nintendo’s Summer Game Fest-adjacent Direct, the company debuted a new Mario & Luigi game: Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It’s been nine years since the last Mario & Luigi game, Bowser’s Inside Story, which debuted in 2009 on the Nintendo DS before being rereleased with extra content and a whole new side story on the 3DS in 2018.

In Brothership, the Mario Bros commandeer their own sailing ship to explore an all-new world dotted with islands in their quest to return to the Mushroom Kingdom. The two must work together using their powers of brotherly love to overcome obstacles and beat bosses.

The onslaught of summer gaming news might finally be at an end — but not before Nintendo has its say. Following events from PlayStation and Xbox, along with Summer Game Fest and presentations focused on Ubisoft and EA games, Nintendo has announced its latest Direct presentation. It’s slated to last around 40 minutes and will be “focused on Nintendo Switch games coming in the second half of 2024,” according to the company. (There won’t be any news about the next Switch, however, Nintendo says.)

As always with Nintendo, it’s tough to predict what to expect, though it’s possible we’ll see a number of rereleases of classic games and, just maybe, finally get a glimpse of Metroid Prime 4. You’ll definitely have to tune in to see what the company has in store for the Switch this holiday season.

A busy June for gaming news just got a little busier. Nintendo announced its next Direct presentation, which will take place on June 18th at 10AM ET. The event will be focused on “games coming in the second half of 2024” and will be around 40 minutes long.

The company previously said that it would be holding a June Direct covering Switch games for the end of the year and also made it clear the event wouldn’t include the much-anticipated Switch successor, which now isn’t expected until 2025. Nintendo reiterated that today, saying, “There will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during this presentation.”