Canceled F-Zero sequel and game from Fire Emblem studio are being resurrected next week on Switch, 30 years after they were supposed to launch on Nintendo's unpopular Virtual Boy
Welcome back, Zero Racers and Dragon Hopper
Nintendo is releasing two unreleased Virtual Boy games next week, with a game from Fire Emblem developer Intelligent Systems finally seeing the light of day.
Everybody loved the Virtual Boy right? It wasn't such a failure that only 22 games released in Japan and the US, got canceled for other countries, and stopped releasing games in less than a year… right?
Well, even if that somehow was the case, Nintendo has brought back the console as part of the Nintendo Switch Online library, with a majority of the console's entire library releasing earlier this year. And while Jack Bros and Virtual Boy Wario Land are pretty much everything you need to play on the console, it has turned out to be one of the coolest Nintendo Switch Online releases for two good reasons.
Nintendo announced the full lineup of Virtual Boy games coming to Switch and Switch 2 users earlier this year, and as part of that, it confirmed that two of the Virtual Boy's myriad of canceled games will be returning. While the lost Mario game that had screenshots emerge last year unfortunately isn't one of them, we are getting a lost F-Zero game, as well as an Intelligent Systems title. Nintendo confirms the missing Virtual Boy games will be releasing next week via a trailer on Twitter.
Two previously unreleased Virtual Boy games are coming to Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics for #NintendoSwitchOnline + Expansion Pack members on Aug 4!☑️ ZERO RACERS☑️ D-HOPPER pic.twitter.com/kxMzoh6alrJuly 31, 2026
Zero Racers was supposed to be the first sequel to the SNES classic and the first game in the series to be in 3D, and would've introduced characters like James McCloud and Jody Summer to the franchise before F-Zero X would do both of those things on N64 a few years later. The game had previews back in the day, but never saw the light of day despite word it was 100% complete.
Meanwhile, Dragon Hopper was another game that had been previewed during the '90s but never saw the light of day, as it was canceled due to the failure of the console. This was to be a Zelda-like adventure game by Fire Emblem developer Intelligent Systems with a playfield that had you jumping between floors. The game was apparently meant to release on August 23, 1996, and now just shy what would've been its 30th anniversary, it's finally seeing a release as D-Hopper.
So who knows, maybe Virtual Boy will have four good games by this time next week.
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Scott has been freelancing for over four years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.
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