Two Unreleased Virtual Boy Games Hit Nintendo Switch Online on August 4

Nintendo is bringing two games that never made it to store shelves back in the '90s to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass on August 4 — D-Hopper and Zero Racers, both originally planned for the Virtual Boy before Nintendo pulled the plug on the console in 1996.

D-Hopper, originally titled Dragon Hopper, is a fantasy action-adventure game where players control a prince fighting to topple an evil regime and rescue fairies and elemental spirits. Zero Racers is a futuristic racing game directly inspired by the SNES classic F-Zero. Both titles were shelved when Nintendo discontinued the Virtual Boy after its commercial failure. Alongside the game releases, Nintendo is also expanding its Nintendo Music app with Virtual Boy soundtracks — Virtual Boy Wario Land, Mario Clash, Galactic Pinball, Teleroboxer, and Mario's Tennis are all now available to stream. And on August 13, Super Mario Sunshine — the GameCube's flagship Mario title — arrives on Nintendo Switch Online as well.

The Virtual Boy had one of the more troubled hardware launches in Nintendo's history, selling poorly and drawing criticism for causing eye strain. Despite that legacy, Nintendo has been quietly rehabilitating the platform on Switch — adding Virtual Boy title support in September 2025, releasing both a plastic replica and a cardboard version of the headset, and even enabling VR modes in Switch games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey through those accessories.

For collectors and retro gaming fans, D-Hopper and Zero Racers represent a genuine piece of lost Nintendo history finally seeing the light of day. The August 4 drop gives Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass subscribers a reason to revisit one of gaming's most notorious footnotes.