The Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase for February 2026 gave Switch 2 owners updates on all kinds of previously-revealed third-party games in development for the console, and it also had its fair share of surprise announcements. One of the biggest surprises at the event was the reveal of Tokyo Scramble, a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive stealth-horror game with dinosaurs that was confirmed to be releasing a mere week after the Direct. With Tokyo Scramble being released so quickly after its announcement and launching a day before fellow Switch 2 exclusive Mario Tennis Fever, I was skeptical about the game. The way it was being rolled out made me feel like it was being sent out to die, and now that I’ve completed it, I’m not surprised that they went that route.
Tokyo Scramble is the most bizarre Switch 2 exclusive released so far. In it, players take control of a teenage girl named Anne who finds herself trapped in a strange underground world full of destroyed buildings and other ruins that also happens to be plagued by deadly dinosaur-like creatures called Zinos. Unlike other horror game protagonists, Anne doesn’t have any guns or other weapons she can use to fight back against these beasts, and instead has to sneak around them.
Tokyo Scramble‘s Zinos come in a few different flavors. There’s the standard, oversized raptors that are the balanced foes, and then there are bats that are blind but have super-hearing, and huge praying mantis-like beasts that are deaf but have superb eyesight. There are even more powerful variants encountered as the game goes on, and each one requires players to employ different strategies if they hope to get Anne safely out of the level.
Stealth games are hard to pull off. The best ones offer nail-biting tension and thrilling moments, but a lot of them end up feeling like tedious exercises in trial-and-error. Tokyo Scramble is the latter. Each level is like a puzzle that requires specific steps to complete safely. It’s all about memorizing what to do when, with little room for on-the-fly thinking. There are times when this approach is cheap, like in one mission when Anne has to follow a monster through a building. There is a moment during the pursuit where the monster spins around unexpectedly, and there’s no way to know that’s coming unless you’ve already seen it happen. Still, there are a handful of levels that are admittedly satisfying to solve and conquer.
Tokyo Scramble’s Stealth is Anti-Fun
Most Tokyo Scramble levels are relatively dull and easy matters of trial-and-error, with extreme difficulty spikes later in the game. Tokyo Scramble uses a generous checkpoint system to keep frustration down and ensure players don’t lose too much progress whenever they get caught by one of the game’s weird-looking dinosaur monsters, which is appreciated. The game would be borderline unplayable without its checkpoints.
Anne dies in one hit from every monster in Tokyo Scramble, and they all run faster than her, so getting spotted is almost always a death sentence. If they’re close enough to cover or an exit, players can try to make a run for it, but Anne is saddled with limited stamina that makes that a dangerous proposition. Early in the game, Anne gets access to a flash on her phone that stuns the creatures momentarily and makes running away easier — a trick that can be abused to flat-out bypass certain sections.
Anne’s phone gains other abilities as the game goes on, but nothing is as useful as the flash, and resources are limited. Anne’s phone must be recharged at stations sprinkled throughout the levels if she wants to use the flash, and it’s such a powerful ability that it doesn’t make sense to waste charge using anything else.
Luckily, there are some tasks Anne’s phone can do without draining her battery. A big focus on the game is activating objects in the environment using Anne’s phone. Sometimes these interactions are necessary to solve puzzles, and other times they are optional ways to distract monsters. For example, there may be a popcorn machine Anne can turn on with her phone that will keep dinosaurs busy, or there may be a fan that can temporarily knock over enemies with its blades.
These environmental interactions are neat, but they are spoiled by the bonus objectives laid out at the beginning of each level. It would have been fun to discover a popcorn machine sitting in Tokyo Scramble‘s underground world for myself, but when one of the challenges for the level is using a popcorn machine to distract the monsters, I already know what to expect.
Still, I like the concept, and utilizing these items to overcome the game’s challenges can be fun at times. The game also does a good job of ensuring that nearly every level has something new, whether it’s a new monster to contend with or a unique puzzle to solve. Unfortunately, that is pretty much all Tokyo Scramble has going for it.
The game is simply not fun to play. The difficulty-spike levels are annoying, and the majority of levels are a little too easy. Tokyo Scramble fails to find a middle ground, and it fails to make its core stealth gameplay exciting. It’s a dull chore for the vast majority of its runtime with other serious problems that drag it down even further.
Tokyo Scramble Does Not Look Like a Switch 2 Game
One of the first things players will notice about Tokyo Scramble is that it’s ugly. Despite being a Switch 2 exclusive, Tokyo Scramble looks like something that would have released on the PS3, and even then there are many PS3 games with significantly better visuals. Textures are blurry, there are many instances of objects awkwardly clipping through each other, and the animations are some of the worst I’ve seen in years.
When Anne gets caught by one of Tokyo Scramble‘s monsters, they often swipe at her with their claws. Instead of Anne getting thrown like a rag doll, the claws phase through her body, and then she awkwardly slumps to the ground. When Anne is sprinting too fast and players decide to stop, instead of her naturally slowing down, she slides forward like she’s got wheels. In certain sections, when Anne is challenged to balance across beams, instead of animating her steps around corners,she awkwardly floats into position.
And then there’s the story. Tokyo Scramble‘s story is nonsensical and weird (almost in a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way, but not quite), with most human characters reduced to color-coded text message bubbles. Anne’s emotional connection to these people we never see is supposed to fuel the drama leading up to the grand finale, but it’s impossible to care about any of them. I have a stronger emotional connection to the pre-recorded voice at McDonald’s that asks if I ordered with the app when going through the drive-thru.
Anne is one of the only human characters players ever see in Tokyo Scramble, with the other one being a dude named Ray who looks and sounds absolutely ridiculous. I don’t fault the voice actors, but the material that they had to work with in this game is cringey, to say the least.
The voice actors have to say a lot of silly nonsense, and the monsters in the game aren’t much better. There are certain levels where monsters and other repetitive, annoying sound effects replay endlessly, and it’s enough to make you want to rip your hair out, as these often happen in the harder levels where you are going to die a lot.
Tokyo Scramble Has GameShare Multiplayer, But I Don’t Know Why You Would Ever Do That to Someone
One of the more convenient Switch 2 features is GameShare, a callback to the days of Nintendo DS Download Play. With GameShare, Switch 2 gamers can share multiplayer experiences with friends that have their own Switch 2 consoles (and in some cases, Switch 1 consoles), only one copy of the game required. Tokyo Scramble takes advantage of GameShare to allow up to four players to play at once, and while the multiplayer co-op is good for some laughs, most will try it once and never touch it again.
Instead of everyone getting their own character, Tokyo Scramble multiplayer instead splits control of Anne among players. So Player 1 might control movement, while Player 2 controls the camera. Player 3 runs the apps, and Player 4 could be in charge of actions like crouching and sprinting. This bizarre take on co-op can definitely lead to some hilarious moments, but it’s a novelty that gets old quickly.
Beating Tokyo Scramble‘s 22 levels took about 5.5 hours, but there is a harder difficulty to tackle and the co-op mode for added replay value.
Tokyo Scramble is weird enough that it is sometimes entertaining, and it’s technically playable from beginning to end, but there’s so little enjoyment to be had that I don’t recommend it. It’s the worst Switch 2 exclusive to date, and with a lineup that includes games like the boring Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour and the wildly overpriced Survival Kids, that’s saying something.
- Released
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February 11, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen / Blood, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Adglobe
- Publisher(s)
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Binary Haze Interactive
- Number of Players
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Single-player
- Weird enough to be occasionally funny
- Lackluster, trial-and-error stealth mechanics
- Ugly, outdated graphics and animations
- Annoying sound effects
- Nonsensical story that fails to make you care about any of the characters
Tokyo Scramble is out now, exclusively for the Switch 2.
