Pokémon fans have found evidence classic games Ruby & Sapphire could also be making their way to the Nintendo Switch.
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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pokémon, the 2004 remakes of the original Red & Blue games were added to the Nintendo eShop last week, making them available on Switch for the very first time.
Many fans assumed Nintendo had just used an old version of FireRed & LeafGreen for the release but over the weekend, a few subtle changes were discovered. An updated censor will stop you from using NSFW language when naming Pokémon and event tickets have been added to the post-game, meaning fans can now catch legendary creatures Ho-Oh and Lugia.
Looking at the game’s source code, dataminer Meatball_132 also discovered that FireRed & LeafGreen will “recognise” Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, with many fans convinced that Nintendo are set to add those classic games to the eShop in the near future. As it stands, it’s impossible to complete the National Dex in FireRed & LeafGreen without them.
I found a function that initialises the emulator hacks based on the GBA ROM’s ID. These are the IDs the emulator recognises for the Pokemon hacks. BPR and BPG are FireRed and LeafGreen, respectively, but AXV, AXP, and BPE are Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, respectively. Huh. pic.twitter.com/9koE4Sufvc
— Meatball132 (@meatball_132) February 27, 2026
Fellow dataminer LuigiBlood found the same information. “It’s not an oracle,” they explained on Bluesky. “Maybe it means Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald is next, maybe it’s never actually happening. It just means they had intentions at one point and nothing else.”
Released in 2002, Ruby & Sapphire were part of the third generation of Pokémon games alongside FireRed & LeafGreen. In 2004, Pokémon Emerald was released, which added creatures from the second generation to the world and made tweaks to the story of Ruby & Sapphire. It went on to sell more than 6.7million copies.
The remakes Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire were released in 2014 for the Nintendo DS but neither version of the game is currently available to play on modern consoles.
Last week, Nintendo confirmed fans would have to wait until 2027 to play the tenth generation of Pokemon games and revealed a first-look at the starters for Winds & Waves. It’s also been announced that GameCube classic Pokémon XD: Gale Of Darkness is coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 Online Library this month, though an exact release date is still to be announced.
In other news, it’s been reported that a new game set within the God Of War universe is in the works at Sony Santa Monica with the prequel spin-off focused on Kratos’ wife Faye.
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