A single image of the main menu of Nintendo Switch 2 has emerged, and it looks more like an iteration than an evolution of the original Nintendo Switch’s menu.
To find this image, you need to look at the Nintendo webpage titled “About Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games.” Scroll down to the section on “How to purchase an upgrade pack,” and the image showing people how to navigate to the Switch 2’s eShop gives us our first look at the UI. At a glance, it’s quite similar to the menu you see after hitting the home button on Nintendo Switch. There’s a gallery of game art in the middle, from which Switch 2 games like Mario Kart World are presumably launched. Above, you can see the time of day, Wi-Fi connectivity, and battery charge remaining.
At the bottom of the screen, players can see which Joy-Cons are connected and a row of icons. Some of these icons are very similar to those on Switch 1, specifically the Nintendo Switch Online, Album, Controllers, System Settings, and Sleep Mode ones. The Nintendo eShop icon has been redesigned to a darker shade of orange, and ones that could be for features like Virtual Game Cards, GameChat, and GameShare appear alongside it. There’s also an unknown icon represented by a green sheet of paper. This could be a redesigned News icon or something else entirely.
While there are some small but notable icon changes, the Switch 2’s main menu, for the most part, takes most of its cues from the home screen design on Switch 1. That means we might be unlucky when it comes to potentially getting improvements like game folders or more menu themes, but we’ll have to wait and learn more from Nintendo before we’ll know for sure.
Nintendo Switch 2 will release on June 5. You should check out GameSpot’s preorder guide for Switch 2 if you plan to pick one up on launch day.