Early on Friday, Nintendo Today users were treated to some news ahead of next week’s Pokémon Day, involving new games coming to the Nintendo Switch. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are being ported to the Switch on February 27th, 2026.
For those unaware (or too young to remember), Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen originally came out in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance. They served as full remakes of the original first-generation games for the Game Boy that came out in Japan eight years earlier. If you grew up in the USA, you likely know Pokémon Red and Blue, which came out in 1998, but the originals in Japan were Pokémon Red and Green in 1996. The remake names are in reference to those.
Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen took the original story of the Kanto region and expanded on it with the third-generation lens it had at the time. This gave it full color and much greater detail to the world, as well as more post-game content and integration with more modern gameplay features that the originals had not yet explored.
Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen coming to the Nintendo Switch goes even further and adds integration with local co-op “without the need to use a Game Link Cable like you did in 2004“.
While the current announcement doesn’t mention Pokémon HOME compatibility, earlier reports stated that “Support for Pokémon HOME is coming soon.” It’s likely that it won’t be available at launch, as most Pokémon games tend to have a larger gap before you can trade Pokémon into the storage app.
In addition, it’s also something to note that the upcoming release of Pokopia, the Animal Crossing-like spin-off game, seems to be set within a similar version of Kanto as the Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen games. You can check out my theory of what is going on with the setting for Pokopia here.
Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are only available digitally and will run $19.99 each when they release on Pokémon Day, February 27th, 2026. They’ll be available in three languages, English, French, and Spanish, individually, on the US eShop. As this is a Nintendo Switch release, it will be compatible with both the Switch and Switch 2.
We plan to cover a lot of the news coming for the 30th anniversary of Pokémon as we approach Pokémon Day next week.
