What you need to know
- Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings will hit Nintendo Switch Online on Wednesday.
- Until the announcement in the Nintendo Direct, there were no proper Switch ports of Mother games.
- Players will need an Nintendo Switch Online subscription to access the game later today.
Earthbound, also known as Mother 2: Gigu no Gyakushu in Japan, and Earthbound Beginnings, or Mother 1, will be available to play on the Switch through Nintendo Switch Online, according to Wednesday's Nintendo Direct. This is the first time Mother games will be available on the Nintendo Switch, and they'll be available later today.
Those with Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions will get access to the two games in the NES and SNES collection. Note that this is the base subscription: The Expansion Pack is still separate, but will include the recently announced Mario Kart 8 DLC.
In Earthbound, Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo have to use psychic powers to fight against Giygas and fulfill a prophecy. Giygas has consumed the world and has turned everybody into creatures the group must fight. While it sold poorly in the U.S. at launch in 1995, it's considered to be one of the all-time classics from Nintendo.
There are three games in the Mother series, known as Earthbound outside of Japan. The first one, Mother, came out in 1989 on the Family Computer, but was released as the English-language, localized Earthbound Beginnings in 2015 for the Wii U. The last time Earthbound was available in the U.S. outside of emulation was on the Wii U Virtual Console, so it's been a longtime coming.
There are a couple of different options available to you if you'd like to dive into Nintendo Switch Online. Not only do you get multiplayer options, but you also get access to a number of NES and SNES games.
