The GameCube's weirdest Pokémon game is finally coming home to a Nintendo platform. Softonic reports that Nintendo has confirmed Pokémon Colosseum for Switch 2 via the eShop, though true to form, no release date is attached. Better still, independent reports confirm its successor, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, is coming along for the ride too. Just listings, a shrug, and a whole lot of GameCube-era memories rushing back.

If you never played it, Colosseum was a strange bird even by mid-2000s standards. It dropped you in Orre, a dusty desert region with barely any wild Pokémon to catch. Instead of grinding in tall grass you played Wes, an ex-Snagem member riding a hover bike with an Umbreon and Espeon at his side, and you literally stole corrupted Shadow Pokémon from other trainers mid-battle. Snagging. That was the hook. You were a Pokémon thief doing heist-adjacent redemption, and somehow Nintendo let it happen.

I remember renting the GameCube version from a local video store, back when that was still a thing, and being genuinely thrown by how moody it was. Pokémon games of that era were sunshiny and cheerful. Colosseum had an underground crime syndicate, a partner character who could see auras, and an opening cinematic where Wes blows up the Snagem hideout. On a Nintendo console. My younger self thought this was the darkest thing ever committed to a Pokémon disc, and I want to say it kind of still holds that crown.

What made it stick, though, was the mechanical backbone. Double battles were the default format, which was wild at the time, and every single encounter forced you to think in pairs. This was years before the mainline series committed to doubles as anything more than a novelty. Purifying Shadow Pokémon, gradually unlocking their moves as you cleaned the corruption out, gave the campaign a slow-burn progress loop that felt closer to a monster-collecting RPG with actual stakes. The heart gauge. Anyone who's purified a Tyranitar knows the pain of that heart gauge.

The big question, of course, is what form these re-releases take. All Nintendo has said is that they're coming through the eShop, and beyond that we're in the dark: no word on whether we're getting the originals with their quirks intact or some light touch-up work, and no clarity on pricing or packaging. But getting both games matters. XD built on Colosseum's foundation with a bigger campaign and more Shadow Pokémon to snag, and for a lot of fans it's the one they actually finished. These things tend to travel in pairs, and this time they are.

What I can tell you is that GameCube games have been having a moment, and deservedly so. The library has gone from cult curio to collector's gold, at least judging by what I've seen on the secondary market while poking around retro listings all year. Digital re-releases like this are exactly the kind of preservation move I love to see, because the alternative is tracking down hardware that's old enough to vote.

No date, no price, no additional details. Nintendo confirmed the games exist and walked away, which is very Nintendo. But if you've been waiting two decades to revisit Phenac City without dusting off a GameCube, your patience is about to pay off. Have you ever actually finished purifying that final Shadow Pokémon? Because I never did, and this might be my shot at closure.