Nintendo Switch 2’s Joy-Con mouse mode is a literal game changer

Nintendo love a gimmick. Sometimes it ends up with three prongs on your controller, other times it’s waggle controls that even your nan can have fun with, and sometimes it’s something that you think is going to be a quirky niche idea, but that has the potential to be so much more. That’s the Joy-Con 2’s mouse input mode.

Let’s be honest, this is destined to be one of the many console-specific features that most third parties are going to overlook or pay the most minimal lip service to, but when it is used effectively, it can be, dare I say, game-changing?

There’s optical sensors in the connection rails of both left and right Joy-Con 2 controllers, making them both equally usable as impromptu computer mice. It’s as simple as tipping or holding the Joy-Con on its side with the sensor to a surface and, combined with the gyroscope and motion sensor, the Switch knows immediately that you’ve got it in mouse mode. You don’t need to have the strap attachment on the Joy-Con to do this, but with the two glides at top and bottom of the rail, they do help give you a smooth motion when using it as a mouse.

Thanks to modern optical sensors, which take tiny pixellated images thousands of times a second for motion tracking, the Joy-Con 2 can be used on many surfaces. Sure, a tabletop with a large mouse mat gives the best experience, but this is adaptable and, just like using a computer mouse in an awkward spot, you can use the Joy-Con 2 on your trouser leg or arm of your sofa.

From the initial batch of games, Drag x Drive is the one that is really built around the mouse controller. It’s not about using it as a pointer here, but rather as a physical motion to simulate pushing left and right wheels on your character’s wheelchair. Just push the mouse along the surface to get yourself up to speed, use only one in order to turn, the triggers to brake, and then motion controls to lift up the basketball and shoot from range – you can, naturally, go in for a sick ramp jump and dunk the ball.

It’s a tiring game from the repetitious, uncommon arm movement, and it takes a while to adjust to manoeuvring yourself like this – speaking as someone who does not use a wheelchair. In that way, I’m reminded somewhat of ARMS, the boxing game from around the launch of the Nintendo Switch. Physical motion and controls, a small-scale sports game, and a testbed to prove the potential.

More likely, mouse mode will be used for smaller spin-off modes and minigames. That’s exactly what you find in Super Mario Party Jamboree’s Switch 2 Edition expansion. We got to try out six of these, with a mixture of shaking and spray painting, air hockey, pulling back to launch windup cars, and one of those precision mazes where you can’t touch the sides. They’re great little games and rather intuitive, but some will be more suited to trouser play than others.

But for me, the most impactful use was actually with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. If you’re holding individual Joy-Con 2, then at any time you can switch from standard gamepad controls to mouse mode just by tipping the controller on its side. It sounds dumb, but it was an ample reminder of just how much more precise mouse controls are for aiming than gamepads are.

The section that we played was action heavy with plenty of battles against Space Pirates that build up to a boss battle against a Metroid-infested monstrosity. The precision of the mouse mode let me track and aim at enemies just so much better and more intuitively.

However, there’s a few added quirks here. For one thing, there’s still a target lock-on, a bit of a holdover from earlier Metroid Prime titles, and there’s also a free-aim toggle that can be used with motion or mouse mode control. Motion felt floaty and vague here, when trying to hit multiple targets on a door, but mouse mode was absolutely precise.

It got to the point where I thought that I’d switch back to gamepad controls, but found that I basically couldn’t aim anymore. I quickly just tipped my hand over and went back to mouse mode.

And that’s the power of this option. It will only really be applicable as an instant control mode shift when playing with Joy-Con in hand, but if that’s how you play (as opposed to with a Pro Controller or in handheld mode), then this has the potential to be a great option. But that caveat of needing to play with separate Joy-Con is probably what will doom this to being a niche and oft-overlooked feature.

Tags: Drag x Drive, Metroid Prime 4, Nintendo Switch 2, Switch 2