Whether you were exploring a haunted hotel in Luigi's Mansion 3 or catching all the new pokemon in Sword & Shield's Galar region, there were plenty of excellent games this year that were unique to the Nintendo Switch.

Best Switch Game of 2019: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

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More Game of the Year Awards

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Best Nintendo Switch Exclusive Nominees 6 IMAGES

Pokemon Sword & Shield

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Luigi’s Mansion 3

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Super Mario Maker 2

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The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

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One game, however, managed to outmaneuver its competition to become our favorite Switch exclusive of the year.Fire Emblem has finally returned to the living room on the Switch, and it’s better than ever.With a vast and open base hub to explore, new ways to turn the tide of battle with your chosen band of colorful characters, and a story that’s as brutal as the choices you’ll have to make on the battlefield, Three Houses has more engrossing content than any in the series before it.For more, check our Fire Emblem: Three Houses review. Fire Emblem: Three Houses is also the Best Switch Exclusive of 2019 according to our readers, winning 34% of the vote in our People's Choice polling.These are our other nominees for the best Nintendo Switch exclusives of 2019.Click through the gallery above or scroll down the page for the full list!For years fans have dreamed of having a mainline Pokemon experience on a home console and with Pokemon Sword and Shield that dream finally became a reality. Best of all, because the Nintendo Switch is a hybrid console, you can still take this previously handheld franchise on the go. This perfect blend of old and new is fitting because expanding and improving on the familiar is exactly what GameFreak does in the Galar Region. Catching, bonding with, training, and battling Pokemon is as satisfying as ever and the addition of Max Raid Battles, Poke Jobs, and more incentivize players to come back every day to see what new adventures and items await even after credits roll.From the exhilaration of exploring the ever changing wild area to the simple pleasure of stumbling upon more curry recipes, Pokemon Sword and Shield makes a great franchise even better.For more, check our Pokemon Sword & Shield review Filled with frights and delights, Luigi’s Mansion 3 improves on every established convention in the series thus far making it an instant fan-favorite and an excellent introduction for newcomers. From oversized watermelons to ghost ships, this haunted hotel is full of surprises and variety on every floor now that things aren’t confined to just “haunted house” aesthetics. Puzzles are a joy to solve and an in-game hint system (that can be toggled on/off) keeps frustration at bay. Combat is no longer a clunky waiting game thanks to the Slam and Burst ability giving you more power than ever before.And the new Suction shot moves gives you even more ways to interact with the environment to solve puzzles and pick up collectibles. Vibrant art direction and playful animations brings every floor of this hotel to life while the sounds of Gooigi plopping out of drains is disgustingly memorable. Controlling Luigi and Gooigi makes for amusing, multi-step puzzles and playing alone or co-op is equally enjoyable. Luigi’s Mansion 3 may not push the adventure genre forward in terms of mechanics or level-design but it’s an absolute blast the whole way through.For more, check out our Luigi's Mansion 3 review Super Mario Maker 2 lets everyone become a game designer. It's more than just a phenomenal tool box, one which allows you to build an infinite number of Super Mario-inspired platforming levels: it's an incredible Mario game on its own, with over 100 new Nintendo designed levels.Add in the fact it also teaches you game design fundamentals AND philosophy, and it becomes one of the most incredible experiences you can have on Nintendo Switch.For more, check out our Super Mario Maker 2 review Even before Switch was announced, people were asking for old games on it. At developer Grezzo’s headquarters, I can’t help but imagine someone smiling, knowing just how well, and unexpectedly, that request would pay off. Link’s Awakening could so easily have been another Virtual Console re-release - instead we got a masterclass in how to remake a game. The new Link’s Awakening knows what to keep the same (the wonderful story, twisting overworld design) and what to add (a toylike new aesthetic, a more fully-fledged control system).The result is something like time travel - a game that plays as it did in 1993, but feels like it belongs alongside the best of 2019.For more, check out our Link's Awakening review

More Game of the Year Award Categories

Best Games by Genre

Games Development and Craft Awards

There are plenty of other awards beyond just the Game of the Year! Check out all our genre and technical/craft awards below!

What's your favorite Switch exclusive of the year? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check out all of our other Game of the Year award winners as well as our picks for the best movies, TV shows, comics, and anime of 2019!

Art for IGN’s Best of 2019 is by Julia Rago, Justin Vachon, Angela Nguyen, and Nicole Cagampan.