The Nintendo Switch 2 showcase seems like it was ages ago now, as we rapidly approach the June 5 release of the Switch 2. We’re now just a few weeks away from its release, and there’s just one thing leaving a bad taste in my mouth. It’s not Mario Kart World with its controversial pricing, and it’s not anything to do with the console itself – it’s how one specific game was handled, and that’s Drag X Drive.
We got our first look at the game in the dedicated Switch 2 Direct, and my initial reaction was one of excitement and inspiration. As players around the world got hands-on time with the game at Switch 2 Experience events, my excitement turned to indifference. Now though, with how Drag X Drive has been handled just a few weeks away from launch, I feel disappointed.
In case you missed it, Drag X Drive is a Switch 2 game that’s basically wheelchair basketball. Used to show off the new Joy-Con 2 mouse functionality, players can use the controllers like they’re holding their wheels, flicking them along a surface rapidly to wheel along, switch to one wheel for turning and then lifting the controller up to throw the ball into the hoop.
I was thrilled when I first saw Drag X Drive get its big reveal, because I’m a wheelchair user myself. Born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2, I’ve used a wheelchair my entire life, and I’ve always found wheelchair-based sports incredibly admirable. Whilst never partaking in them myself – I prefer video games – I always had a lot of appreciation for and felt inspired by those who did make it big in wheelchair sports. It’s not often that we get wheelchair sports represented anywhere, but especially not in video games. For once though someone was doing it, and it was the notoriously reserved Nintendo. It was an incredible surprise, for as fleeting as those feelings were.
The disappointment came after, as people managed to go hands-on with the game at Switch 2 Experience events, and staff spoke to the public about Drag X Drive. According to the staff members at these events like in London which we attended, Nintendo had told the folks on the booth to refer to the in-game wheelchairs exclusively as “vehicles”, and not wheelchairs. This has been echoed by other journalists online such as Chris Scullion who, whilst playing a different game, was corrected when describing Drag X Drive as “the one with the wheelchairs”, being told by staff “we call them vehicles”.
This was incredibly disheartening for me. I’m not a particularly sensitive person, nor do I feel the need to have things catered to me – I’m a huge video game fan and there’s barely any disabled characters in any of these games and I don’t mind! However, what makes me so disappointed is the fact that this obviously is a wheelchair basketball video game. It’s not an exaggeration, it’s not reading into it, it’s not an interpretation, they are literally wheelchairs and they are playing basketball.
To refer to them exclusively as “vehicles” is to erase the “wheelchair” part of the entire wheelchair basketball sport the game is inspired by. Drag X Drive uses the sport for its entire concept, but Nintendo dare not use the word “wheelchair” and thus remove an essential part of the identity of its inspiration. Even the reasoning behind being so squeamish about the word “wheelchair” is baffling to me. Are they afraid of being too “woke”, or are they afraid of being seen as “anti-woke”? Do they think calling them wheelchairs will suddenly make the game be seen as a diversity-meeting agenda – or do they think that calling them wheelchairs would offend us disabled people and so they keep it broad? It’s truly baffling.
Words matter because we use them, we express ourselves with them and we relate to them. I am a wheelchair user. That doesn’t mean it defines me, that doesn’t make it a personality trait, but it does mean that wheelchairs are an essential part of my (and many others’) being. They are an accessibility tool. I am disabled, and thus wheelchairs are important in centralizing the part of my disability that affects how I interact with the world. It’s essential I use that word because it communicates things about me, my needs and how I travel through life.
Drag X Drive is a wheelchair basketball game, but Nintendo won’t let them be called wheelchairs, which means something about that essential part of the identity of wheelchair basketball players scares them. If others follow their lead, and people repeat the idea of them being “vehicles”, we lose the key disability-centralizing aspect of the sport that makes it so special and important. Wheelchair basketball is wheelchair basketball because the players are using wheelchairs, and thus they are disabled people.
Even outside of the terminology, Drag X Drive has been left to flounder by Nintendo in favor of every other upcoming release. It’s set to release this summer in the coming months, but we still don’t know anything about the price, the game experience beyond the core gameplay loop, customization, accessibility options, and so on. Nintendo took wheelchair basketball as a concept to make a game, stripped it of a key part of its disability-centralizing terminology, and then also made it look like a tech demo with nothing else to it. I really hope we see more soon and Nintendo shifts their messaging, but only time will tell.
That’s how I read it at least! Whether you’re disabled or not, I’d love to know if you agree or disagree with my interpretation of the problems with Drag X Drive. Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more gaming news and opinions like this as we approach the launch of the Switch 2.
Boohoo , how about the fact that the game looks awful and no one wants to drag joycon to mimick a wheelchair.
I kind of thought the fact that the game is awful would be more pressing than Nintendo not wanting to use the term wheelchair, which is a bad term to use because wheelchair people make non wheelchair people sad. It’s counter intuitive to selling a game, get over it.
If “wheelchair people” make you sad then, boohoo, get over it.
Well said!