Some huge updates are coming to Nintendo 64 games in Nintendo Switch Online.
Nintendo Switch Online currently allows you to play Nintendo 64 games in the Expansion Pack tier, on the Nintendo Switch. These will join other features and entitlements to the Switch 2.
As Nintendo announced themselves, they will be adding new features for these games on June 5, the same date as the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2.
There is one feature that will be available on both the Switch and the Switch 2 – at long last, you will be able to both view the control mapping for the buttons in each game you play, as well as change the mapping for these games.
This feature will be especially useful for games that would be more playable with different control schemes. So, if you wanted to play the recently rereleased Killer Instinct: Gold with an arcade joystick, or if you’re a Gen Z FGC players, a leverless stick, you can do that now.
Another feature exclusive to the Switch 2 that will be familiar to gamers who already have a Switch online subscription is Rewind. While it’s already possible to use save states to make playing games easier, being able to rewind your game a few frames earlier makes it much more intuitive to correct your mistakes. Some gamers may also object to this, but it’s a QOL feature that makes playing older (and harder) games more enjoyable.
Finally, the Switch 2 will exclusively get a CRT filter, and this is a feature some younger gamers don’t quite understand. To cut a long story short, games that were made before the advent of LCDs in the 2010s were designed in such a way that they would look their best in CRT displays. While gamers who attach an older console to a newer display will think that games look blurry and have artifacts, that information will appear much clearer on an older CRT. In fact, there are sometimes details that are lost when they aren’t properly displayed on the older CRT standard.
In the Nintendo 64’s case, developers deliberately used a blur effect to smooth out jagged edges in graphics. So Nintendo 64 in particular benefits a lot from being played in the CRT standard. While the Switch 2 of course plays Nintendo 64 games using emulation, that emulator doesn’t fully take the CRT standard into account. As a result, Nintendo 64 games arguably look worse on Switch Online than they do in their original console. The images may look clearer and sharper, but they make for a poor recreation of how these games originally looked.
It’s certainly a shame that Switch owners will be missing out on this feature, but it’s possible that the emulator will make real use of the Switch 2’s power to simulate this CRT effect. We’re definitely looking forward to when the public gets to try this out and the people who specialize on Nintendo 64 judge for themselves how much better these games come out because of it.
For now, you can watch Nintendo’s official trailer below.
