Confession time: I’m a Wii U stan. In fact, I’m so much of a Wii U stan that I’d make the argument that it’s Nintendo’s best console since the NES, purely from a hardware perspective. Software-wise, it’s one of the worst, which is a big reason it ultimately failed, but the actual design of the console is ingenious, and I hope against hope the Switch 2 brings back its most defining feature: second-screen gaming.
For the young’uns, the Wii U is a Nintendo console that was announced in 2011 and released in 2012. It looks a lot like the Wii that came before it, but with a peripheral screen you can use as a controller in tandem with your TV. While your TV acts as the traditional display, reacting to input from the directional pad and buttons and displaying the view of the player character, the GamePad’s gyroscope enables motion controls to display what you’re actually aiming at with your real-life hands. I still vividly remember watching its reveal and thinking, “that’s going to be great in horror games,” and I was right. More on that in a minute.
In a way, the Wii U opens up a new dimension that exists only on the GamePad screen. If you want to quickly look behind you, you can do so by physically turning around in the real world and seeing what’s behind you in the game, as if it acts as a portal into a parallel universe. Nevermind the convenience of quick-touch inventory management and map access, as well as the cleaner main screen due to HUD elements being on the GamePad, when utilized cleverly the Wii U’s second screen simply means more immersive, and by default, scarier games.
The Switch could never
(Image credit: Nintendo)
Nintendo tried with the Wii U, it really did. Nintendo Land was essentially designed to be a showcase for the GamePad’s unique capabilities, and it does so well, but pretty much every first-person Nintendo game released for the Wii U utilizes it in some way. Without even digging too deep, I can think of a bunch of examples of the GamePad either being instrumental to a game’s functionality or simply making it more fun, immersive, and convenient.
The golfing game bundled in with Wii U Sports Club lets you place the GamePad on the ground and visualize your golf club hitting the ball as you swung. Mario Maker is infinitely easier to navigate and interact with thanks to the touchscreen, which you can use to create maps while actually playing them on the TV. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE turns the GamePad into a fully functioning smartphone, letting you receive calls, texts, and messages in separate group chats you can simply tap to expand. Pikmin 3 lets you send off captains to complete tasks by just drawing a line on the GamePad, which is really freeing.
I could go on and on, but the longer I do, the more I delay the ace in my sleeve: Zombi mother-effin’ U. Not Zombi, the mid-to-good horror game you can play on PlayStation and Xbox. No, Zombi U, the original version of the game that was a launch title for the Wii U and is made exponentially better and scarier thanks exclusively to the GamePad. Zombi U’s second-screen functionality is the best use of the Wii U GamePad there ever was, a sad reminder of the missed potential in the middle-child of Nintendo’s console family, and the crux of my plea for Nintendo to bring it back in the Switch 2.
Tension u can touch
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Like I said before, I’ve had the pleasure of playing many games that benefit from the Wii U GamePad, but Zombi U is the only one where I felt the second screen was integral to the experience. Its gimmick is simple but incredibly effective, and I don’t think it’s been done anywhere else. First of all, the UI is almost entirely displayed on the GamePad, making the action on the big screen all that much more immersive. But if you’ve been reading this article you already know that’s nothing special.
What’s special about Zombi U is the backpack. It’s just a little icon on your GamePad screen alongside your map and equipped items, but if you touch it and slide down it opens up your inventory. When that happens, the first-person camera on the big screen turns into third-person and you lose control of your character, who’s crouched down looking through your inventory.
The thing is, the action doesn’t pause when you access your inventory, which means if you want to equip something or just ruffle through your bag, you have to physically look down at your GamePad with your real-life eyeballs while your character is completely vulnerable to attack. It’s incredibly tense, and the same sort of thing happens any time you have to scan your environment, loot a corpse, look through a cabinet, tap in the code to a keypad, and pick a lock.
The most stressful moments in Zombi U, which to this day rival the scariest games I’ve ever played, are when I’m surrounded by a horde of encroaching zombies, running low on ammo, and struggling to find space to open up my inventory and swap weapons. If I don’t have a weapon loaded up in one of the six quick access slots the game gives you, I have to avert my eyes from the main screen and drag one out of my inventory manually while my character is completely defenseless.
Do I try to buy myself a few seconds by tossing a molotov cocktail or flare in the direction of the zombies? Do I try to run far enough away that I can quickly swap weapons, or do I flail around with my cricket bat and stubbornly fight the inevitable? More often than not it’s the latter, simply because I’m paralyzed with anxiety. Unfortunately for me, it’s a decision with a lot of stakes, as when you die in Zombi U, you lose that character permanently, and the only way to retrieve your items is to go find your body and loot it.
Warp pipe dream
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
I still remember thinking the Wii U was a revolutionary moment for horror, but even more broadly, I still think there’s a lot of untapped potential in its gimmick, largely because the console failed so spectacularly that Nintendo ditched it entirely with the Switch. Think of the possibilities! Nintendo seemingly revealed a new Mario Kart
Of course, it’ll come as no surprise by now that my happy chemicals are most activated when I think of the potential for second screen horror on the Switch 2. Imagine using the GamePad, or whatever weird name Nintendo could come up with for it, to scan environments and reveal specters you can’t see on the main screen, kind of like how Fatal Frame: Maiden of the Black Water turns the Wii U GamePad into the Camera Obscura. Think of the tension in a survival horror game with no safe rooms where you have to use the second screen as a crafting bench in real-time, all while vulnerable to attack. And I’m just riffing off the top of the dome here! I shudder to think of what the brilliant engineers and developers under Nintendo’s leadership could conjure up.
That said, I’m also not naive. Regardless of its innovations, the Wii U was one of the biggest failures in terms of console sales of all time, while the Switch, which completely abandoned second-screen gameplay, is the second bestselling console of all time worldwide and the first in the US. Even I can admit it makes zero sense for Nintendo to make the Switch more like the Wii U, and I can just about guarantee that it won’t. I’m not even sure it would be technically possible, since the Switch 2 presumably has to be plugged into the dock to project its image to a TV. Maybe there’s something that could be done there with Bluetooth, but yeah, not likely.
So why even make the argument that it should? Well, to be quite candid with y’all, I’ve been looking for a topical way to get on my soapbox about this for literal years now, and as soon as the Switch 2 was officially announced, I knew my opportunity had arrived. The Wii U was and still is my weird, awkward, but ultimately underappreciated horror companion, and I’d like to think in some alternate reality there’s a Wii U 2 sitting under my TV.
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