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When Nintendo's Virtual Boy launched in 1995, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. 3D games with a giant, personal screen? Portable 32-bit power in the same year that the original PlayStation came out in the U.S.? "Who cares if you need to prop the thing up on a stand and stare through an obnoxious red filter to use it," I thought, "that's awesome."
Fast forward to 2026, and I was pretty glad I never got one. The console has become famous over the years as one of Nintendo's most notorious flops, with poor sales, an extremely limited library, and reports of severe discomfort from players who did actually get one.
Nintendo's bringing it back anyway. Last September, the company announced that it was creating a Virtual Boy accessory for the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, which you can use to play Virtual Boy games in full 3D through a wonky headset-on-a-stand, just like Virtual Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi intended. And now that I've actually been able to go hands-on with it at a preview event, I'm starting to think that maybe my elementary-school self was right, actually.
Turns out the Virtual Boy was actually ahead of its time
Before I tried the Virtual Boy Switch accessory, I had never actually played a real Virtual Boy. I had seen footage of games, which looked like a nightmare to play in YouTube videos, but actual hardware was too rare to get my hands on. Now, though, the Switch accessory has allowed me to actually play Virtual Boy games for myself, instead of just watching other people playing them. And they're a lot harder to scoff at when you go hands-on.
The first thing I noticed is that the 3D effect on this thing is incredible. It's the most convincing 3D I've ever experienced on a Nintendo system, and that includes the 3DS. Characters pop from the background, and stages in games are laid out to use the depth to actually help with gameplay.
Take Red Alarm, for example. The wireframe graphics look like a mess to navigate in flat videos, with your ship constantly blending into the background. But seeing the game in actual stereoscopic 3D suddenly makes everything click. It's still not the most complicated game, but for 1995, having a portable-ish (the Virtual Boy is massive) space shooter with a fully explorable 3D environment seemed like witchcraft. Now that I've tried it, I can say that it works, and I can really appreciate how the developers used stereoscopic 3D to make the simple graphics the console was capable of rendering actually work for a playable 3D space. It all felt so ambitious, and I feel so vindicated in my childhood hype to know the effect wasn't just marketing.
Granted, the 32-bit power here is still a bit misleading. The original Virtual Boy put out a resolution of 384 x 224 per eye and a max frame rate of 50 fps, so it was less like a portable PS1 and more like a souped-up Game Boy. Don't expect to play anything on the level of Final Fantasy VII or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater here. Still, Red Alarm is a type of game that, in 1995, I would have been shocked to find on anything other than Sony's machine.
Does that mean any of these games are going to make your game of the year list for 2026? Well, probably not. But they're decidedly not bad, and they're a novel piece of gaming history that are definitely worth trying, especially if you've been mocking them all these years like I used to. Despite the low resolution, they look crisp on the Nintendo Switch's screen, and they play way better than I thought they would. They also clearly innovated on design tropes that Nintendo would later use in games like Super Mario 3D Land, where the 3DS' (worse, to be honest) 3D effect was also used for gameplay. I can still see why the system flopped, but I feel confident now saying that it was indeed ahead of its time, and I probably would have been happy with it in the '90s if I listened to my gut and got this thing all those years ago. Granted, I wouldn't have been spending my own money back then.
The new Virtual Boy accessory is authentic to a fault
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
"But Michelle," I can sense you typing. "You didn't actually play a Virtual Boy! You played a Nintendo Switch 2 emulating a Virtual Boy!" That's true, but I feel confident saying that the experience I got is probably pretty identical to the one I would have had 31 years ago on the real thing. And that's because Nintendo has really gone all-in on accuracy with its Virtual Boy accessory. That's probably the correct choice—again, the games are mostly interesting for their place in gaming history rather than in their own right—but there are some caveats to be aware of.
The big one: You might have to rearrange your table or desk to actually use the Virtual Boy Switch accessory. The plastic version of the accessory looks just like the real thing, but that means its stand also isn't adjustable. So if your table isn't already at the right height for you to fit your eyes into the viewfinder when you plonk your Virtual Boy replica down on it, you'll need to either take it somewhere else, or stack it on some books or something. Nintendo had adjustable height tables at the event where I tried it, which means the company is aware of the problem.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
The other issue is that you supposedly need the accessory to play these games. Technically, there's no reason these games shouldn't be able to be played in 2D in TV mode, but Nintendo told me at the event that isn't possible. According to the company, to boot up Virtual Boy on your Switch or Switch 2, you'll have to take your system out of its dock and place it into the Virtual Boy accessory. I do wonder if some clever fans might be able to get around this and play in handheld mode without the system resting in the Virtual Boy accessory, with each per-eye image just showing in 2D side-by-side. But that's just speculation, and even if it weren't, some of these games need the 3D effect to really work, which is probably why Nintendo's being so strict about how you can use the accessory.
Personally, I don't mind this. I'm playing these games to get an idea of what Virtual Boy was like without having to get a real Virtual Boy, so making the experience as one-to-one as possible is perfect for me. But I understand how it can introduce accessibility issues for others, which might be why Nintendo has allowed just a few new options to make playing Virtual Boy in 2026 a little easier.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Because the plastic version of the Virtual Boy accessory is $100, Nintendo is also selling a cardboard version for $25. It's not a fully accurate recreation like the more expensive model, but it is still decorated enough to be cute in its own right. More importantly, aside from being cheaper, you can also use it without a stand—it actually doesn't even come with one. That means that you can just physically hold it up to your face and control it with Joy-Con controllers connected to either side of the device. I can imagine that might get uncomfortable after a while, but it is how Nintendo's LABO VR worked, and it should be a decent workaround if you can't rearrange your space for the plastic model. It is also a bit more portable.
The second is aimed at helping reduce the strain of those red graphics. While the games impressed me more than I thought they would, I'll admit that the Virtual Boy's red filter still got to me after even just a few minutes of play. That's why players will eventually be able to choose from alternate color options for their games, including a yellow filter, a green filter, and probably the best one, a black-and-white filter. The feature's set to come out "Later this year," and I assume it'll be a godsend for anyone who actually wants to finish a Virtual Boy game rather than just play it for novelty. If you have the plastic model of the Virtual Boy accessory, you'll need to remove the physical red filter for the screen, but that'll only take a few seconds.
New Virtual Boy games are coming in 2026
Probably the coolest part of this release is that, alongside letting you play Virtual Boy games originally released in North America, the new Virtual Boy accessory will also be able to play formerly Japanese-only Virtual Boy releases. In addition to Red Alarm and Virtual Boy Wario Land, for instance, I also got to play Lovecraft-inspired first person horror game Innsmouth no Yakata at the preview event I attended. That adds some serious novelty, and is a pretty smart choice overall, since the Virtual Boy originally only had 14 games in North America.
But cooler than that, Nintendo is also adding unreleased games to the Virtual Boy catalogue for Switch and Switch 2. These include a cancelled F-Zero game called Zero Racers, which makes the accessory pretty much a mandatory buy for Captain Falcon fans.
How to get the Virtual Boy accessory for the Switch and Switch 2
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
I went into trying the Switch's Virtual Boy accessory expecting to make fun of it, and walked away impressed and with a greater appreciation of gaming history. After decades of making fun of the Virtual Boy, I now have to admit I kind of like it. That's easily worth the price of entry to me, and I'd say it's well worth buying if you can swing it—at the very least, it'll make a nice desk toy.
Unfortunately, there's one last caveat here. Both the plastic and cardboard Virtual Boy accessories for Switch and Switch 2 are limited to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. That's not a huge deal, since you'll also need a Switch Online subscription to play these games. But for now, even if you are a subscriber, both models of the accessory seem to be sold out. Hopefully, Nintendo will add more stock over time, so I can convert more people to my new "the Virtual Boy is good, actually" movement.
