After roughly half a year since the launch of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen on Switch, Nintendo will soon be adding Pokémon HOME support to its glorified GBA ROMs in October 2026. Announced via the official Pokémon website, once players link their games to HOME, they’ll be able to transfer critters to the cloud for safe keeping, not to mention transfer them to other games to fill out their Pokédex’s across multiple regions. One caveat is that once you transfer captured Pokémon from the GBA games to another title, they will be unable to return to their original home. While that’s a little disappointing, it’s understandable because of how different modern Pokémon is compared to the older classics.
On the bright side, if you’ve managed to catch all 251 Pokémon in FireRed and LeafGreen, you’ll receive Celebi on the mobile version of Pokémon HOME for transfer to other titles. The website notes that you won’t even need to transfer Pokémon to HOME to receive the bonus. Any Pokémon registered in your Pokédex in the GBA games will count in HOME, thus giving you some leeway from having to transfer everything. It also means you can easily register Ho-oh, Lugia, and Deoxys without having to catch them all.
Mixed in with the announcement of FireRed and LeafGreen’s upcoming HOME connectivity is an “End of Service” statement for Pokémon Bank. An old 3DS application made to support now ancient handheld hardware, Pokémon Bank will be ceasing services on February 25th, 2027, at 7 p.m. PT. As you would expect, once service ends, you will not be able to transfer any Pokémon in your Bank to HOME, or vice versa. Nintendo is giving advanced warning so that people with critters in Bank make sure to transfer them out before the end date. Pokémon Bank hasn’t been available to download since the 3DS eShop closed in March 2023, so if you didn’t previously use it, you won’t need to worry.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
