Nintendo Switch Online Is Adding a Fan Favorite Pokemon Game

Highlights

• Nintendo Switch Online’s offerings are expanding with the addition of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team on August 9.
• Fans hoping for mainline Pokemon games on the service will instead get to enjoy this spin-off title as part of the NSO Expansion Pack tier.
• While newer versions are available, the re-release of Red Rescue Team allows fans to experience the original features and story.

Nintendo has announced that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team will be added to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service on August 9. The Nintendo Switch Online service’s offerings has grown quite a bit over the past couple of years, with the introduction of the Expansion Pack tier giving gamers access to a host of older games from the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo 64 libraries. While the service is still divisive, Nintendo has been regularly adding new titles every month. This month’s addition is a rather unexpected but still well-regarded game, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team.

Many fans had wanted the mainline Pokemon games like Pokemon Red, Crystal, and Sapphire on the service for the longest time. Currently, the only Pokemon games on Nintendo Switch Online are spin-offs, which are the Pokemon Stadium duology, Pokemon Puzzle League, the Game Boy Pokemon TCG game, and Pokemon Snap on N64. The latest addition to the service is another spin-off, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team, and is one of the first games that started the fan favorite Mystery Dungeon subseries.

The first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game launched on both the Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS in 2005, split into two versions: Red Rescue Team for the GBA and Blue Rescue Team for the DS. Like other mainline Pokemon games, they had their own exclusive features and Pokemon. The Nintendo Switch Online service is getting the GBA version of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team via the NSO Expansion Pack tier on August 9, 2024.

When Is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team Coming to Nintendo Switch Online?

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon sees the player having been turned into a Pokemon and losing their memories of their human life. Through a series of events, the player and their partner Pokemon go exploring various dungeons and get involved in a plot that involves saving the world. While Red Rescue Team‘s, and by extension Blue Rescue Team‘s, story and content is on the shorter side compared to its sequels, it is still a well-regarded entry in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon subseries.

The re-release of this older title is a big surprise for many fans, as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX, an enhanced remake of both Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team, is already on the Switch. That said, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon remake omits a few features from the original, the most notable one being the Personality Quiz at the start of the game whose answers determined what Pokemon the player would play as. With the re-release of Red Rescue Team, fans can revisit what made the first entry in the series so special in its original form.