Feature: Nintendo Switch Year In Review 2023

Image: Gemma Smith / Nintendo Life

What happens every December? Christmas Day. New Year’s Eve. A bunch of sales as we approach the end of the year. Oh, and our year-end video game wrap-ups.

Nintendo Switch Year in Review 2023 is officially available, meaning you can scour over every single second of your video game habits for the year. The stats range from the three most-played games of the year to your genre preferences. Head on over to the official Nintendo website to get your stats now — all you need to do is jump into the link below and sign in, and tah-dah!

Nintendo Switch 2023 Year In Review Page

Before we share our Year in Review stats, boy, what a year for video game releases it’s been, hey? We expect a lot of variety in your gaming habits — and a lot of Zelda, too.

We at Nintendo Life are eager to share own own stats with you, the lovely readers. Which of us has played too many RPGs? And who’s put the most time into that brand-new Zelda game?

Have a read through our year’s stats and share your most played games in the comments below. Enjoy!

Jim Norman, Staff Writer

Image: Nintendo

Most played games 2023:

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Fire Emblem Engage
Sea of Stars

Surprise, surprise, Tears of the Kingdom takes the top spot for me (you better get used to that shock). It only sits at the 81-hour mark — a small week’s worth compared to some of us — but my goal was to go for story first and foremost and then pick it up again at a later date to mop up everything else. It just so happens that ‘everything else’ was rather a lot this year, so returning to Hyrule hasn’t been top of my to-do list…

I am slightly surprised to see Fire Emblem Engage in second place with 50 hours logged — and that came from January and February alone. And my beloved Sea of Stars lands at number three. I only had 35 hours logged in this one (what can I say? I spread my time around), but what a 35 hours they were!

I put a total of 405 hours into my Switch this year across 44 different games. Neatly, I wrapped up most of these in the 10 to 20-hour bracket (*cough* the ideal length for a game *cough*), though the likes of Hollow Knight and Pikmin 4 took up a little more of my time and narrowly missed out on the podium. Maybe next year for Silksong, eh?

Ollie Reynolds, Staff Writer

Image: Nintendo

Most played games 2023:

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Metroid Prime Remastered
Persona 4 Golden

I’ve struggled with Tears of the Kingdom since its launch. Given that Breath of the Wild is one of my all-time favourites, the direct sequel really should have been a slam dunk for me. Sadly, every attempt to get into it has resulted in boredom creeping in, eventually resulting in me shutting it down to play something completely different. Yet at 66 hours of total playtime, no one can accuse me of not trying – so there.

Metroid Prime Remastered is predictably very close behind at 59 hours; I can beat this game in just a handful at this point, so my time spent with this one has consisted of multiple playthroughs and meticulous item hunting for our guide. It’s pure comfort food for me, so I suspect it may well end up as one of my most played games of 2024, too.

I’m a little surprised that I only managed to accumulate a total of 40 hours on Persona 4 Golden; I truly treasure this game and I thought I spent much longer on it. But gosh, there have been so many great games this year, I guess it really shouldn’t shock me.

Alana Hagues, Deputy Editor

Image: Nintendo Life

Most played games 2023:

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Octopath Traveler II

Okay, so, I might need to go out a little bit more: I played my Switch for nearly 1,200 hours in 2023. Eep.

My number one was guaranteed — I spent a whopping 284 hours on Tears of the Kingdom which shouldn’t be surprising given that I reviewed and guided it. I’m also not surprised to see Octopath Traveler II here, either, because I did absolutely everything in that game — lots of save scumming for steals and many superboss attempts and deaths until I finally felled it. 88 hours is about what I expected given how dense that game is.

The biggest surprise here is Animal Crossing. I totally forgot I slipped back into that game in the spring during the pre-TOTK lull. I haven’t touched it since May and somehow I managed to put 128 hours into it. Good lord. Basically, I spent over 40 hours on nine different games, and almost all of them were RPGs: Trails into Reverie, Trails to Azure, Star Ocean The Second Story R, Disco Elysium, Sea of Stars, Theatrhythm… busy year for the genre, huh?

Gavin Lane, Editor

Image: Finji

Most played games 2023:

Tears of the Kingdom
Tunic
Skyward Sword HD

No surprises with number one. With 111 hours on the clock, I only recently beelined to the Lightning Temple and then onto Hyrule Castle for the final showdown in an effort to trounce Ganondorf before 2024 arrives. I’d say there’s at least another 100 hours of noodling before I’m finished in Hyrule.

Tunic was in my backlog from last year and scratched a pre-TOTK itch very well (although I never actually beat the final boss), as did Skyward Sword — a surprise entry sneaking into third place just ahead of Vampire Survivors! Again, I was jonesing for Zelda while awaiting TOTK’s arrival and I ended up going back to one that I picked up at launch but only played for a few hours.

Elsewhere, I touched a whole swathe of games — 48 in total — for a few hours each; it’s been a bitty year for one reason or another, lots of half-finished adventures. My first game of 2023 was the excellent Rogue Legacy 2, which I was still addicted to, and 1% of my genre trends this year were taken up by pinball, thanks exclusively to the Star Trek: The Next Generation table added to Pinball FX.

Kate Gray, Contributor

Image: humble Games

Most played games 2023:

Tears of the Kingdom
Slay the Spire
Stardew Valley

A year is a surprisingly long time in games! I honestly forgot that I’d had a Stardew phase in the earlier half of the year, mostly playing with my partner on a shared farm. It was his first time playing, and my seventy millionth, so it was largely an exercise in me being Chill and Not Telling Him That We Need To Complete The Community Center ASAP. Did I succeed? Ha, no.

Unsurprisingly, Zelda is there — don’t kill me, but I actually haven’t finished it yet — and Slay the Spire, which I jumped back into recently. I am a little surprised that it’s only 88 hours, actually.

I also had 53 hours of Fae Farm, 49 hours of A Wonderful Life, 33 hours of The Winds of Anthos, and 24 hours of Pikmin, so no prizes for guessing what my most played genre was this year. And a glorious 11 hours replaying my beloved Ghost Trick. What a year.

PJ O’Reilly, Staff Writer

Image: Nintendo

Most played games 2023:

Tears of the Kingdom
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Fire Emblem Engage

Of course Tears of the Kingdom is my number one Switch game this year in terms of both hours played and how much I enjoyed it overall. There’s just no getting around it, it’s one of Nintendo’s finest hours and a game that’s really left me wondering where Team Zelda can go with the series after such an awe-inspiring, all-encompassing adventure (I’ll take a return to classic dungeons if that’s ok with everyone else).

Elsewhere, and besides big review games which I tend to spend far too much time with – I’m talking about the likes of Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Fire Emblem Engage specifically, my other most played titles on a purely personal level this year have been Dave The Diver and Dredge. We’ve had some real doozies this year on the indie front, but these two really do highlight the endless creativity and choice of experiences that indie games bring to the table on Switch. What’s that? Dave the Diver isn’t an indie? But Geoff said so!

Outside of my top three, there’s all sorts in the mix. I took a serious shine to Sea of Stars, Pikmin 4, and a whole bunch of other stuff this year and, overall, I actually reckon Switch has had its best year to date in 2023, which is just mad really. I haven’t even mentioned my love affairs with Octopath Traveller 2, Super Mega Baseball 4 or PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, those have all accrued hefty playtimes too, but yeah, this year belongs to Zelda, with a fat diver (not to be confused with chubby plumber) and some eldritch fish scooping up the number 2 and 3 spots.

Gonçalo Lopes, Contributor

Image: Rockstar Games

Most-played games 2023:

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Fire Emblem Engage
Red Dead Redemption

The tale of one John Marston took the bronze this year. It’s a bit silly since I had already completed the game back on PS3 a few years back, but the allure of returning to a virtual, now portable Wild West proved too much to pass on. I still plan to come back and finish the expansion Undead Nightmare later down the line.

The silver medal goes to the very first Nintendo release of 2023: the phenomenal Fire Emblem Engage. Skipping on the heavier social aspects of the previous entry, this strategy RPG got me hooked from day one thanks to its relatable characters and clever mechanics that are used as an excuse to bring back heroes from previous entries.

No real surprise for the one landing on top of the podium: just like the previous game, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will likely remain the subject of many conversations for years, for being a template for open-world adventuring video games, the amount of lore it adds to the already-complex Zelda canon, the incredible plot, and the huge amount of tiny little touches that make this such an unforgettable masterpiece. Just writing about it makes me want to go back to it and wander back into this incredible redemption of Hyrule. Maybe some DLC next year will let me do just that (not happening, sorry – Ed).

Those are our Years in Review most played games, but why not share yours? Vote in our poll below and let us know your favourite stats in the comments.

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