Last week, a Nintendo Switch update made it possible to share short videos of select first-party games on social media. The feature isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t matter. Right now, despite being in the middle of fall game season, many video game fans are talking about months-old Nintendo releases instead.
Zelda, unsurprisingly, is the most popular shared game on Twitter’s #NintendoSwitch video tab. The most prominent trend I’ve seen has players confronting disguised members of the Yiga clan, only to kill them immediately after the conversation is over in increasingly absurd ways:
It doesn’t always go as planned, however:
Really, there are all sorts of Zelda clips floating around that showcase the beauty, hilarity, and randomness of the open-world game. Here’s a taste of what people are sharing.
A wonderful moment
Heartbreak
Badassery
Whaaaaat.
Silliness
Zelda might be the biggest Switch game making the rounds since the update, but folks are using the video share for other games too, of course.
The Switch is the hottest console out there right now, without question. What this phenomenon of viral social media posts suggests is that the Switch exploded with one hand practically tied behind its back. Remember: the Switch blew up despite having no simple way to share in-game moments from the biggest games. Sure, savvy players could always hook up a video capture device to the Switch, but the ease of having a built-in feature still makes a huge difference. This is why we’re getting more Nintendo Switch footage on social media than ever before. And every clip shared basically acts as an advertisement for the console. With Mario Odyssey just days away, I have a feeling that the Switch is about to dominate social media in full force very soon.