Wii Sports Resort on Switch 2: What Came Back and What Did Not

Wii Sports Resort (2009) is the reference point for everything in Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, and the new game is best understood as a reinterpretation of it rather than a sequel to Nintendo Switch Sports. The island is the same island. The event list overlaps heavily. The structure around the events is completely different.

The returning events

Six of the original twelve resort events come back in recognisable form:

• Tennis, motion swing, same scoring shape as the Wii game.
• Bowling, including the 100 Pin side mode that fans asked for.
• Archery, still the game's best precision event.
• Table Tennis, faster than the Wii version and more forgiving on serve.
• Golf, expanded into a full mode rather than a three-hole sampler.
• Boxing, back after sitting out the 2022 Switch Sports roster.

The other six resort events are absent, and three of them are the ones people ask about most. Badminton, chambara and football, which appeared in Nintendo Switch Sports (2022), do not return here either.

What replaced them

The new roster adds volleyball, basketball, thumb wrestling, prop plane, skateboarding and power cruising. Read that list again, because it explains the game's identity: two team sports, one comedy event, and three vehicles.

The vehicles are the actual design statement. In Wii Sports Resort, Wuhu Island was a map you selected from. Here it is terrain you cross, with the plane, the skateboard and the jet ski as your ways of moving through it. Collectibles are hidden in that terrain, and the leisure sports are how you reach them.

The island, then and now

The castle, the volcano, the golf courses and the beach geometry are all still there. What changed is that you arrive at them rather than selecting them.

How the motion feels different

Wii MotionPlus was the technical foundation of the 2009 game, and it was good enough to make archery and bowling feel precise. Joy-Con 2 is a different instrument: it tracks a wider arc, it tolerates faster swings, and the game compensates less for sloppy input as a result.

In practice, that means two things. First, the ceiling on accuracy is higher, so the top difficulty settings are harder than anything in the Wii game. Second, the floor is lower: you cannot flail and get away with it the way you could in 2009. The sports expect a complete, deliberate motion.

What did not survive the transition

Wii Sports Resort's island had a personality built out of small things: the tour guide, the stamp collection, the specific way the plane flew. Some of that is preserved as atmosphere, some is replaced by the Spocco Points economy, and some is simply gone.

The biggest loss is the Swordplay Showdown mode, which lived inside chambara. With chambara absent, that entire progression has no equivalent. If that mode was your reason for playing the Wii game, this game does not replace it.

Is it a remake?

No. It is a new game that reuses the island and roughly half the event list. The physics are new, the progression is new, and the single-player structure did not exist in the original at all. Calling it a remake undersells how much of the design is Island Crown and the Item Center.

Where to go next

If you are weighing the two games, the missing sports page lists exactly what did not make it. If you want to know how the island works now, the Wuhu Island map guide covers the layout and the collectible routes.

FAQ

Is this a remake of Wii Sports Resort?

No. It reuses the island and about half the events, with new physics and a new single-player structure.

Can you play the original Wii Sports Resort on Switch 2?

Only through the original Wii disc on a Wii or Wii U. There is no Switch release of the 2009 game.

Which Wii Sports Resort events are missing?

Badminton, chambara (including Swordplay Showdown), football, cycling, canoeing, wakeboarding and frisbee do not appear.

Does Wuhu Island look the same?

The geography is recognisable, but it is now an open world you travel across rather than a menu map.