Nintendo is adding three games to the Sega Genesis app for Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack. But that’s not the only thing that they’re including in this update.
On Twitter, they made this announcement:
“Three classic SEGA Genesis games have just been made available for #NintendoSwitchOnline + Expansion Pack members!
ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron
Vectorman
WOLF OF THE BATTLEFIELD: MERCS”
ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron is the 1993 sequel to the original ToeJam & Earl. This is a side-scrolling platformer, more in line with the popular genres of the time than the original. The fact that developers Johnson Voorsanger Productions made such a wide departure between the two games has also created a small divide in the fandom between people who prefer the original, which is discreetly a roguelike game, and the sequel.
Vectorman was Sega’s answer to the very impressive pre-rendered sprites of Donkey Kong Country. Perhaps matching the differences between Sega’s arcade game philosophy, versus Nintendo’s defining of console games made to play at home, Vectorman was an arcadey action title, comparable to Treasure games like Gunstar Heroes or Contra. At launch, it was credible competition to Nintendo’s rebooted apes, but Sega and developer BlueSky Software was not able to move forward with ideas for a third game in the franchise.
Finally, Wolf of the Battlefield: Mercs is actually a Capcom game, that Sega ported themselves to the Mega Drive. Like the arcade original, it is a military themed run and gun title. While most gamers today will remember side scrolling run and gun games like Contra and Metal Slug, this was a vertically scrolling title with a top-down perspective.
So these are all decent, if not particularly top-tier, action games from the golden age of such games. If you’re subscribed to the Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack, you will want to update your Genesis app to give them a try. But these games are not the only thing you will be getting with the latest Genesis app update.
Luigiblood shared this revelation on Bluesky:
“So I saw the version was 3.0.0. And I actually found that very odd because it shouldn’t. Turns out I was right to find it suspicious: THEY CHANGED THE NETWORK CODE FROM NEX TO NPLN!
There’s a huge amount of refactors in the code.
I expect each NSO retro app to receive a major version update down the line, putting to use the brand new network code for each.
It’s been months that I saw something else in the NSO UI code and it’s still unused, and I still don’t know what it is about. I seriously wonder if there will be another major version update down the line.”
NPLN code is also what Nintendo has been using for the online functionality of their Splatoon games. While we can see that this update has tangible benefits for Switch users now, it could also hint towards Nintendo updating the Genesis app, and their other apps, for when they push that Switch Online interoperability between the Switch and the Switch 2. No less than Nintendo’s president Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed that this feature exists to their shareholders earlier this month.
Nobody is saying that this update confirms a Switch 2 announcement or anything like that, you can get caught up on the latest rumor here. But as the weeks run down to the end of the fiscal year on March 2025, you can expect Nintendo to tip their hat a little bit more that they are preparing for that announcement and launch.
In the meantime, you can watch the latest Nintendo Switch Online trailer for these incoming games below.
