Pandemic, Catan and the Lord of the Rings LCG are all coming to Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch might be the new home for digital board games, after a number of big tabletop titles were announced for the hybrid video game console.

The latest Nintendo Direct video announcement revealed that a number of Asmodee Digital games would be following the previously-revealed Carcassonne app onto the platform later this year and into 2019, including Pandemic and the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game, which recently arrived on PC.

Carcassonne will be the first to launch, bringing local multiplayer and some of the tile-placing gem’s expansions – as paid DLC – to the Switch in December.

That’ll be followed by co-op disease-curer Pandemic – which had a rocky launch on PC last month – in March 2019, which will similarly come with the chance to cough up extra for its expansions.

The Lord of the Rings LCG, which isn’t quite the same as LOTR: The Card Game on the tabletop, is slated for an April release next year. Its PC version remains in Early Access – it’s not clear whether the Switch version will be free-to-play or require players to buy some of its packs, as you currently need to do to try it ahead of launch. We do know that the living card game will have both single-player and multiplayer modes on the console.

A few other digital board games were also teased to be coming to the Switch, including the Catan Universe for Settlers of Catan and its ilk, and comical dungeon-crawler Munchkin. Neither of those games was given a release date.

Although it’s not officially a board game adaptation, the latest instalment in Sid Meier’s Civilization series – inspired way back when, of course, by the 1980 strategy board game – was also revealed to have a Switch edition in the works. Civilization VI will be out on November 16th and will let up to four people play co-operatively or competitively over local multiplayer.

Get a brief look at the Switch board games on the way during their Nintendo Direct reveal below: