Nintendo rustles up new puzzles in its Big Brain Academy refresh for Switch

Brain exercises make a comeback

Big Brain Academy
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Nintendo has just announced ‘Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain,’ dropping on the Nintendo Switch on December 3. For a piece of hardware that's the fastest-selling console of all time, it sure does a stellar job of keeping a lid on certain games. Indeed, this rather discreet announcement may come as something of a surprise to fans of the educational puzzle genre, who'll be familiar with the Big Brain Academy franchise that made its first appearance on the OG Nintendo DS

And if that doesn't give you a sudden spasm of pure gaming nostalgia, we don't know what will. Just cast your weary minds back to those halcyon days of exercising your brain through a series of handheld mini-games. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. 'Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain' promises to breathe new life into the franchise with a revamped series of brain-tangling conundrums. 

The game was already pretty darn popular back then amongst global audiences, even warranting a later release on the Wii U. Arriving on shelves from December 3, you can pick up the revitalized version of the brain-training game for $29.99, only this time the game has a multiplayer-powered party mode, which lets you tinker with individual players' difficulty levels, alongside a regular single-player and online mode.

Depending on your household's general mood at the time in question, this could form a fun (and intensely competitive) evening of racing through the game's mini-puzzles, aiming to outwit your relatives or friends, while they lag behind unable to match your prodigy-level genius. Nintendo has even released a trailer, which is well worth a peek below:

If you really do hold boffin-level skills in relation to the new Big Brain Academy game, then you can venture out into the intellectual wilderness to challenge the play data of others online. Dubbed 'Ghost Clash' mode, users can randomly take on the so-called ghost data of friends or other random bright sparks from across the world if your family doesn't pose enough of a challenge.

Overall, it looks like a super fun game to play irrespective of how well you think you'll fare during the puzzle rounds. The refreshed game appears to ooze that same light-touch charm of the old Nintendo DS franchise, which is a difficult line to tread when producing a game based solely on training the brains of different age ranges. If this brain-teaser game isn't quite the ticket for you, though, then don't worry as we've got a whole load of other picks of the best Nintendo Switch games to get stuck into that are far less taxing on the mind, but equally as enjoyable.

Luke Wilson

Luke is a former news writer at T3 who covered all things tech at T3. Disc golf enthusiast, keen jogger, and fond of all things outdoors (when not indoors messing around with gadgets), Luke wrote about a wide-array of subjects for T3.com, including Android Auto, WhatsApp, Sky, Virgin Media, Amazon Kindle, Windows 11, Chromebooks, iPhones and much more, too.