Earlier this year, Pokemon FireRed and Pokemon LeafGreen landed on Switch as digital ports, giving a whole generation of players their first clean way to revisit Kanto on modern hardware. Now, a quiet Pokemon Home update is sending the community into full detective mode.
The update in question added a dedicated "GBA games" button inside the Switch version of Pokemon Home, specifically to handle transfers from the newly released FireRed and LeafGreen ports. On the surface, that sounds like routine housekeeping. Here's the thing though: the button is labeled for GBA games broadly, not for FireRed and LeafGreen specifically. That distinction has fans convinced the infrastructure is being built out for more GBA titles, with Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and its Generation III siblings sitting at the top of everyone's wishlist.
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What the Home update actually shows
The new transfer pathway lets players move Pokemon from the Switch GBA ports into their Home cloud storage. Once transferred, those Pokemon can travel to Sword and Shield, Scarlet and Violet, Legends: Arceus, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and Pokemon Legends: Z-A, though it's worth flagging that any Pokemon sent to Z-A cannot be moved to other mainline games afterward.
The "GBA games" label is doing the heavy lifting for speculation here. FireRed and LeafGreen are already two games, so the plural framing of the button technically makes sense without implying anything else is coming. Community reactions have been pretty split on that point, with plenty of voices pointing out this is more of a hopeful reading than a concrete signal.
There's also a separate wrinkle around Celebi. Players who complete the Pokedex in FireRed or LeafGreen receive a Celebi, but it's delivered to Pokemon Home rather than the in-game save. To trigger the reward, you need to deposit at least one Pokemon to link your save, though a full living dex isn't required. The side effect is a permanent gap at #251 in any save file where you've moved Pokemon out.
The case for Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald
What most players miss in this conversation is the broader pattern. The decision to port FireRed and LeafGreen rather than the original Red, Blue, and Yellow skipped over Gold and Silver entirely, jumping straight to GBA-era remakes. That means Pokemon Ruby, Pokemon Sapphire, and Pokemon Emerald are the logical next GBA titles in the lineup, not a Gen 2 release.
A separate piece of circumstantial evidence surfaced a few weeks back when a well-followed Pokemon account on X posted a short, high-quality clip that appeared to show footage from Ruby or Sapphire. The clip ran roughly 30 seconds and the production quality had people speculating about a Switch port announcement. Nothing official has followed it, but it added fuel to an already active conversation.
The commercial logic is hard to argue with. FireRed and LeafGreen reportedly performed well enough that leaving the rest of the GBA library sitting on the sidelines would be a strange call. Generation III has a dedicated fanbase, and Hoenn nostalgia runs deep.
Reading the tea leaves carefully
The key here is separating what the Home update confirms from what fans want it to confirm. The "GBA games" button exists because FireRed and LeafGreen are GBA games. Full stop. There is no official statement, no datamine result, and no announcement backing up the RSE speculation beyond the label choice and the general trajectory of The Pokemon Company's release strategy.
That said, the trajectory is real. Porting legacy titles to Switch has become a steady revenue stream, the infrastructure for GBA connectivity in Home is now live, and there is no obvious reason to stop at two games. The question is timing, not whether it happens.
If you want to get ahead on Hoenn knowledge while the wait continues, the Pokémon Alpha Sapphire guides are a solid starting point for brushing up on what made Generation III worth revisiting in the first place. And if you're planning a broader dive into the series while the ports materialize, the full gaming guides hub has you covered across the Pokemon lineup.
