SNES classics are Switch bound! The biggest reveals from today’s Nintendo Direct

Nintendo is tugging hard at fans’ nostalgic gaming heartstrings, revealing in today's Nintendo Direct event that a well-curated library of classic titles from the Super Nintendo era is bound for the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service. 

The big reveal came alongside news that 20 SNES games — including a couple that routinely show up on gamers’ short lists of the greatest games ever made — will go live tomorrow, Sept. 5, for Switch Online members. The new trove of SNES games won’t cost subscribers extra, either; they’re simply being rolled in with the price of a current membership. 

Among the first batch of SNES classics that’ll be hitting the Switch this week are stone-cold greats like Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, F-Zero, Super Mario World, Star Fox, as well as 15 more. Nintendo pledges the first 20 games are just the beginning, and that it’ll regularly update the Switch Online library with even more SNES games. 

To drive home the throwback appeal of playing SNES games the way they were meant to be played, Nintendo also unveiled an updated, wireless version of its classic SNES controller. The USB-charged controller will go on sale alongside the new rollout of SNES games, and it’ll only be available for Switch Online subscribers. The retro-new controller also will support the Switch’s live-rewind feature, bringing instant replayability to all those Super Metroid fails that made us rage quit more than once, back in the day.

For a full list of all the SNES games coming to Swtich Online, check out Nintendo’s announcement page. 

SNES games weren’t the only throwbacks Nintendo announced today, though, adding in a couple of Nintendo 64 title reveals that are not only pretty cool in their own right, but also wave an encouraging signal that Nintendo may have greater things planned for its N64 library in the future. 

Both DOOM 64 and Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast are Switch-bound, with Jedi Outcast coming on Sept. 24, and DOOM 64 on Nov. 22 — its first time hitting a Nintendo platform since its 1997 debut. In a cool nod to fans of Toby Fox’s indie hit Undertale, Nintendo also revealed that Fox himself is composing the musical score for the upcoming Little Town Hero, a just-announced Switch RPG from Pokémon developer Game Freak.

Nintendo also teased new reveals and progress updates for a slew of third-party games bound for the Switch between now and Christmas, including “definitive edition,” DLC-bundled versions of previously Switch-less titles like Deadly Premonition 2 (available now), Divinity: Original Sin 2 (available now, with Steam cross-save support), The Witcher 3, and both Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Rogue, which are being bundled into a single purchase titled Assassin’s Creed: Rebel Collection.

Nintendo also spent a ton of time outlining newly-revealed features for some of it biggest Switch hits, including a sneak peak at two all-new Pokémon who’ll be joining Pokémon Sword and Shield: Polteagiest, a Disney-eque teapot creature, and Cramorant, a blue, birdlike water Pokémon. Plus, an all-new fighting character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate — the fourth in a timed rollout of five planned additions — will arrive when Fatal Fury’s Terry Bogard comes chopping his way into the melee this November. 

Nintendo’s final big reveal of the night might not have hit with the magnitude of a new Zelda trailer or a status update on Samus Aran, but it’s still solid: a definitive edition Switch remake of Xenoblade Chronicles, the groundbreaking RPG that marked a high point for sprawling, tightly scripted JRPGs when it first hit the Wii back in 2010. Details are super-light, but Nintendo teased that the reworked game will arrive sometime next year.