Hands-On Preview: Drag x Drive

On Friday, Nintendo hosted one of its Nintendo Switch 2 Experience events at CBS’s Televsion City in Los Angeles. We got a chance to go hands-on with multiple Nintendo Switch 2 titles and will be discussing them in detail. For this installment, we’ll be looking at Drag x Drive.

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During the April 2 Nintendo Direct broadcast, Nintendo showed off an all-new sports title that turned many a head. Drag x Drive was the name of the game, and it revolves around a surprising sport: wheelchair basketball. Utilizing the Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con controllers’ mouse controls, the game’s trailer showed off players mimicking the motions of turning the wheels of a wheelchair as one would in real life. With a sci-fi quality to the character and course design, it’s an interesting mishmash, but I wondered—would it work?

After getting to play it hands-on, I was quite impressed. The controls are very intuitive, the action is frantic, and it really shows off how versatile the mouse capabilities of the new Joy-Con are. However, I also felt a twinge of disappointment; not because Drag x Drive isn’t fun, but because I fear it will be a little too niche to appeal to a general audience. This would mean the game might end up ultimately going the way of ARMS, where an interesting premise sadly isn’t enough to draw in players.

The demo begins with an overview of Drag x Drive’s controls. Players are guided through brief tutorials that teach how to turn, how to roll forward, and how to shoot and pass. All of these motions are easy to learn and very naturally correlate with the real world movement one would make in an actual wheelchair basketball match. Not in a super realistic way, but more of an arcade-like, exaggerated style.

Now, where I think Drag x Drive will run into some difficulty is players having the setup to properly engage with the mouse controls. If you’re wondering, yes, you can indeed drag the Joy-Con across your pant legs in order to play. However, during the course of a frenzied 3v3 match, I didn’t think that playing this way would be very comfortable in the long run. It can get pretty harried rolling around and shooting in Drag x Drive, and I found that the tables Nintendo had set up with large mousepads on top were the most sensible way to play,

But see, therein lies the problem: if tables and big mousepads are the best way to experience Drag x Drive, I don’t know how many people will really be able to accommodate that setup, especially for groups of multiple players. The beauty of Wii Sports is often credited to its simplicity; basic sports with basic rules that can be completed with basic motions. If you know to swing a bat to hit a baseball, then you know to do the same thing in Wii Sports. Part of that simplicity was also extended to the ease of setting up mathces with friends: just grab a Wii Remote, clear a space, and stand in front of the TV. Drag x Drive falls just short of that ease of access.

That said, it doesn’t change the fact that I had a lot of fun, and from the sound of the reactions of the people I was playing with, they were enjoying Drag x Drive, too. I really appreciate that Nintendo is taking a sport that is normally played by people with physical mobility limitations and, instead of treating it like something sacred or precious, is presenting the sport like it would any other. This extends to the stylings of the players, their wheelchairs, and the arenas, which I described earlier as being influenced by sci-fi. Wrapped in armor, with bright lights and neons jazzing up the action, it was easy to get sucked into this world.

Unfortunately, I did think that what was shown of Drag x Drive’s playing court and characters was lacking in variety. After multiple matches in that gray arena with its gray players and wheelchairs, well… I’m not sure who thought that was a great idea. What could save this aspect of the game is if there are multiple arenas, different costumes, and so on. So far, I haven’t heard anything of the sort, but hopefully that changes before launch.

It might not dethrone NBA2K as the world’s go-to basketball game, Drag x Drive is nonetheless a charming and exciting experience. The controls are easy to learn and foster fast, thrilling basketball matches. Ultimately I fear that the best way to play (on a table with a mousepad) will be the game’s undoing, as most people aren’t going to be able to facilitate it for spur of the moment matches, but I hope I’m wrong. Drag x Drive is good fun and gamers should be on the lookout for it later this summer.