Last week, Nintendo announced a handful of Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of original Switch games, including Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World, Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. What became immediately clear was that game titles like Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World, Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition are entirely too long, and this naming practice needs to stop!

These overly wordy titles are not new, of course. Nintendo has published re-releases like Super Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, and Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition for Switch — these lengthy names help to differentiate these titles from their original versions. Nintendo is navigating a rocky console transition, and is trying to make it explicit which of its older titles have been upgraded to showcase the Switch 2s features. But something has to change.

Granted, Im arguing this mainly from the position of someone who might need to put Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition in the headline of a story on Polygon, and in most cases, am asked to write short, punchy headlines. Naturally, I find these names — which span upward of 77 characters — to be unwieldy.

Can Nintendo not simply add a “DX” or “Deluxe” or some other single-word descriptor to these game titles to shorten them? What about return to the Nintendo DS era, when game companies communicated the platform on which software was released by sticking “Dawn of Sorrow,” “Dual Strike,” or “Destinys Soldier” at the end of a title? Can we not just look at a games box art, see the words “New Funky Mode” in the upper right corner, and acknowledge that were getting something extra?

Maybe these arent great solutions. (I would greatly appreciate alternative suggestions!) And maybe Im approaching this from an inside-baseball perspective, where Im loath to ask the people who define our style guide, “Hey, do we italicize Nintendo Switch 2 Edition in Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV?” But I also think that the solution that Nintendo has landed on is awkward and ungainly, even if were only going to get a handful of games named this way as the company transitions from the Switch to the Switch 2.

But I stand by the claim that, as game titles go, Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World, Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition are entirely too long. Even if Nintendo cant do something about it now, let it never happen again.