The first non-Mario game on China’s Nintendo Switch is from Tencent

Although launched in December, the mainland China version of the Nintendo Switch has only had three approved games officially for sale in the country, all of them from the Mario franchise. But starting May 28, Chinese players will have one more option: Iris.Fall, a puzzle game developed by Tencent’s in-house Next Studios.

Tencent, the Switch’s Chinese distributor, first teased the game when the then-two-year-old console finally launched in the country. At the time, the Chinese giant also promised to bring other domestic games like Chinese Parents to Switch players. But since China enforces a stringent approval process for all games, the Chinese Nintendo Game Store has remained noticeably barren.

As the rest of the world saw the release of Nintendo’s new blockbuster hit Animal Crossing: New Horizons in March, gamers in China still have to turn to physical copies smuggled in from abroad. The demand drove up gray market prices before listings were banned from online shopping sites altogether. Other gamers simply try to buy Switch consoles imported from nearby markets like Hong Kong -- another way to access titles currently unavailable in mainland China.