The Just Dance series has been a staple in my household for nearly 15 years! Ever since my sister and I had a Wii, we have been dancing to hit songs through the medium of Just Dance. Even in college, my friends would put on the YouTube videos of various dances in order to mimic them since we didn’t have a console on which we could play the game. When Ubisoft allowed us to review this game, I jumped at the opportunity. For this review, I wanted to look at the noticeable differences from this iteration compared to the 2025 edition, which I previously owned. So let’s dive in!

I wanted to start with the last segment of the statement I made about this review. ”The 2025 edition, which I previously owned” is key as something absolutely weird occurred when I first installed this game on my Nintendo Switch. With most games, it would make a new icon and show the game’s name. Instead of that happening, the download of the new game went over the icon for the 2025 edition of Just Dance and rewrote itself as the 2026 edition. This was quite perplexing for me and seemed like an unusual design decision.

The other unusual thing that happened is that all of the hours that I had put into the 2025 edition of the game were suddenly wiped. Due to this, I lost any sign that I ever owned the 2025 edition of the game beyond the empty shell case that came with the version gifted to me and the remaining days of my Just Dance Unlimited Membership that was attached to it. While this certainly isn’t the end of the world for someone like me, I could see someone who likes to keep progress for each of their games to be quite annoyed by this decision by Ubisoft. 

Moving on, let us delve into the main content of the game, which includes the songs and dance routines associated with them. As usual with new releases of Just Dance, they feature a good mix of brand-new songs and classics from previous years. “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga, “All Star” by Smash Mouth, “APT”. by ROSE & Bruno Mars, “Counting Stars” by OneRepublic, “Houdini” by Dua Lipa, and “Strangers” by Sigrid are just a few of the wonderful songs that stood out to me.

There are also quite a few oddball songs like “Bluey Medley” from the Bluey show, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by “Mrs Claus and the Elves”, and “Prehistorock” by Ricky Stone that seem quite perplexing as to why they were added to this game. This wide net of songs is the normal behavior for Ubisoft since they are trying to attract everyone and anyone who are willing to buy this game. For the most part, the dancing for these songs works for them. There are a few songs that have normal and extreme versions of the dance routines. For those songs, it is a gamble on which one feels right for the overall vibe of the song.

As stated previously, this game has the Just Dance Unlimited Pass, which has become standard for the Just Dance franchise. This pass allows you to be able to access all of the other songs from previous entries in the Just Dance series. While I greatly appreciate all of these, as it allows people to play some absolute bangers, it seems a bit ridiculous for you to have to purchase this pass to get songs from the past, but it doesn’t allow you to access any of the new songs when the year comes. For the 2026 edition, this isn’t a problem, but it will be when the 2027 edition comes out. This is obviously a planned double-dipping strategy from the publishers, but it does feel dirty.

While I imagine that the Nintendo Switch will continue to get Just Dance games for the next few years, especially considering that the Wii received a Just Dance game every year up until the release of Just Dance 2020 which was about three years after the release of the Switch, I think that they need to fundamentally change the menu for the game for the Switch 1 version. My reasoning for wanting this is that the Switch often struggles to load things promptly. I am unsure if this is a graphics issue or a file formatting issue, but there is something beneath the surface of this game that the Nintendo Switch just doesn’t like at all. I even tested to see if it could be my internet connection for some reason, but that didn’t appear to be the reason for the issue. Perhaps there is a simple fix for it, so here is hoping that Ubisoft will think of something for the 2027 release. 

Overall, I think that Just Dance 2026 is a good game that is simply mired by poor design issues that will hopefully be resolved. Time will tell if Ubisoft is willing to make said changes so that Just Dance breaks out of the hole it is in with all of the yearly entries for sports games. This seems highly likely, but a dancer can dream! If you are looking for other games that you can play with the family, check out Taylor Bauer’s review of Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2 on the Switch right here.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Just Dance 2026 was provided by Ubisoft for this review.

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Just Dance 2026

$49.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Great Set of New Songs
• Some Songs for the Odd Oness
• Some Dances Don't Work for Song

Cons

• Slow Menu
• Weird Rewriting of Old Just Dance
• Double Dipping Sales Strategy