It’s July. It’s too hot to play video games, but you desperately want to play some anyway. Maybe you’re headed out on a family vacation. Maybe you’re poolside on a weekend, or just feeling magnificently lazy. You want to capture the summer feeling in a box, and then hook that box up to your TV, and play it in video game form. Or maybe you want to take it on the road with you and play it on the beach. Like, on your Nintendo Switch, for example.
But this can’t be just any ol’ video game. It’s gotta feel right. It needs to be a summer vacation game. If you’re short on ideas of what game might make you really lean into the summer vibe, I came up with 12 that felt about right.
I tried to make sure this list had a good mix of stuff on it: indie and AAA, new and old games, short and long. This is not a “cozy” game list or anything, but I also didn’t add anything that I felt was too strenuous or attention-demanding—summer vacations are for relaxing. They’re also for playing games in hotel rooms, at poolsides, near lakes, and in other locations that don’t involve a TV, so these are all games that are *very* playable in handheld mode. I’m happy to take and offer more recommendations in the comments below. Just let me know what you’re looking for, and I’ll see what I got in the ol’ game bag.
New Pokémon Snap
I feel like a lot of folks slept on how good New Pokémon Snap is. The sequel to an N64 classic, it’s about taking nice photos of Pokémon in the wild, and features some of the most genuinely interesting and cool depictions of Pokémon I’ve ever seen in the games. Even though there are a number of diverse levels with different environments in here, including some snow, I think I associate New Pokémon Snap with summer because of how immediately absorbing its seaside level is. That crystal clear ocean, the different Pokémon surfing in the waves, the Wailord, it’s all just very summery to me. This is a good, breezy game to play on a beach chair somewhere. Not too strenuous, hardly boring, highly pleasant.
Shin-chan: Me and the Professor On Summer Vacation
This is a weird little game, but I kinda love it. Based on the popular manga and anime Crayon Shin-chan, this sends the very young protagonist off on a summer vacation to a small, Japanese village (a la the Boku no Natsuyasumi games) where he gets up to…well, all sorts of things, and also not much of anything. You can catch bugs, fish, grow vegetables, run little errands for people, and occasionally end up in strange, fantastical situations involving dinosaurs. It’s a really lovely depiction of summer in the Japanese countryside: big blue skies, billowing grasses, cicadas. It’s perfect for playing carelessly on a porch somewhere in the heat of the day.
On Your Tail
On Your Tail is a cute mystery-adventure life sim hybrid following a goat lady who visits a charming seaside village. It’s a genuinely lovely-looking game, and I think the setting does a lot to make it appealing specifically as something to play during the summer. Who doesn’t want to hang out in a little Italian beach town for their vacation? And chase after a phantom thief in the process? Or maybe see if anyone else in town wants to smooch you? Okay, the last one’s optional.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Come on, this game had to end up on this list! New Horizons is an ideal vacation game. The whole dang thing literally takes place on a vacation! I’ve played this game on beaches, beside pools, and in remote cabins on mountains, and it holds up in every single one of them. There’s something so harmonious about playing a game about getting away from it all while getting away from it all. And summertime is a great time to play, with all the bugs and fish available to be caught! The Happy Home expansion especially adds to that feeling given its focus on vacation vibes, even if in that one you’re doing work instead of beach time. New Horizons is the closest you can get to “my job is beach,” so even if you’ve put it away after playing hundreds of hours, there’s no better time to revisit it than during the summer.
Naiad
Naiad is another game that just screams summer, even without explicitly being summer themed. You play as a little water spirit swimming through a series of rivers. And that’s…kind of it? There are some light puzzles to solve, and some hidden secrets like collectible ducks, but I recommend Naiad just because of how nice it looks and feels to swim through its lovely waters. It’s also not too long; you can finish it in an afternoon on the beach if you want.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream
Strange as it sounds, this has been my game of choice for the summer. While it doesn’t give off explicitly summer vibes, what I like about Tomodachi Life is that it’s about as mindless as you want it to be. You can make super-complex Miis to live on your island or very detailed little items for them to play with, or you can just sit back and watch everyone wander around and interact with each other, and not intervene at all. I’ve been playing it a lot this summer in the second format, checking in on my Miis occasionally and nudging them as needed but mostly just enjoying watching what they get up to. Great game for tired people.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
I’ve mostly tried to keep this list limited to fairly laidback games, and Ys VIII isn’t super hard or anything, but damn is it summery. Adol and his buddy Dogi get shipwrecked on an island with a bunch of other people, and slowly work to explore the island, rescue the other ship passengers, build a community, and eventually escape. Meanwhile, there are tons of ancient ruins on the other side of the island, and a mystery unfolding in the past with consequences in Adol’s present day. It’s the best game in the Ys franchise by a nautical mile, and it’s summer-y in the extreme thanks to the whole island thing. It also has one of the most banger area themes in a game ever in Sunshine Coastline, which is basically a summer anthem (listen above!).
Mixtape
For the music lovers, Mixtape is a great way to celebrate a summer, especially if your summer vacation is serving as a transition period: either between college and a job, or something else. It’s a story of three teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, and their one last big night of revelry before their lives really get started. If you’re into banger soundtracks, beach parties, jamming in the car, and running from the cops, Mixtape is a fantastic trip down memory lane.
Firewatch
An oldie (wow, a decade!) but a goodie; if you’ve never played Firewatch there’s no better time to play it than over a summer break. It follows a man working as a fire lookout in a national forest over a summer. Though he sits in his tower alone, he communicates via radio with a woman in another tower named Delilah. Together, the two begin to uncover a mystery in the woods, while their relationship with one another begins to develop. This one’s a bit more melancholy than a lot of the other stuff on this list, but sometimes you need something a bit sobering during a busy summer. Firewatch is another short one, easy to get through in a couple of afternoons if that’s all you have.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Now available on Nintendo Switch Online if you have a Nintendo Switch 2, The Wind Waker is a great game to revisit over the summer. It remains unmatched in its portrayal of vast ocean expanses, with gorgeous sailing music, rolling waves, and tons of islands to explore. The Wind Waker holds up surprisingly well, too, so if you’ve never played it before and want to play some of what is now apparently “classic” Zelda purely on a basis of age, grab The Wind Waker and dive on in.
A Short Hike
A Short Hike is just what it sounds like. It’s a snack of a game, in which you play as a little bird person taking a hike up a mountain. You can glide off heights with your wings, so there’s lots of room to get distracted jumping off stuff on the way up, and there are multiple biomes, collectibles, minigames, and other little landmarks and distractions to poke around as you hike. I like A Short Hike because there’s no hurry to do anything, and in fact no real demand to accomplish any particular goal except to maybe, eventually, get to the summit of the mountain. Summer is a great time for meandering, and A Short Hike is a good game to meander through.
Rhythm Heaven Groove
And yes, I had to include my most recent Nintendo Switch obsession on this list! It’s Rhythm Heaven! As far as games that are good in handheld mode go, Rhythm Heaven can’t be beat; that’s where it’s at its best, and even better with headphones. Since it’s just a series of minigames, you can dip in and out whenever and however you want without pressure. There are even some little multiplayer games if you feel like getting friends involved, but you don’t have to. And it includes a couple of summer-themed minigames too, such as Fruit Flex and Crab Snack. Join me in spending the summer trying to Triple Perfect and Shadow Perfect all the remixes…unless it stresses you out. Then definitely don’t do that.
