The rumors were true! As anticipated by Pokémon leaker Khu, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen—the Game Boy Advance remakes of the original English-language Pokémon games—are coming to Switch and Switch 2 February 27. They’ll be available as downloads as soon as the 30th anniversary Pokémon Direct comes to an end.
So yes indeed, this confirms what was absolutely certain: that there would be a Pokémon Direct this Pokémon Day, during which it seems utterly impossible that we won’t get our first glimpse of Gen X Pokémon and the new mainline game in which they’ll appear. We now also have the time: February 27, 2026 at 9 a.m. ET.
The arrival of these two 22-year-old versions of a 30-year-old game as a paid download, and not as new entries in the GBA section of Nintendo’s Online subscription package, is a bizarre and pretty shocking choice. Some might say a mercenary one. There surely was the potential that they could have been made available for free to celebrate the franchise’s 30th birthday, and given how ancient they are and how appropriate it would be…that’s obviously not happening. It’s Nintendo. If your uncle worked for Nintendo, he’d charge you for those imaginary leaks. So yeah, astonishingly the company has the complete gall to charge $20 for each. And it won’t even support online features.
Ew, what a horrid taste that leaves in my mouth. The GBA versions of these two games had sold a combined total of 11.82 million copies in their first four years on sale. That’s over $400 million. They kinda made their money back. Nintendo could so easily celebrate this huge anniversary by having these be available for free, gain so much good will, and get nostalgic players hyped for Pokémon again ahead of the release of the new game this winter. Gah. Twenty sodding dollars.
