Nintendo Switch Online Adds Three Genesis Games, Including Some Leaving Steam

Not every title from the 16-bit era of consoles is readily available to legally play, but three more games from the Sega Genesis vault are heading to Nintendo Switch. ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron, Vectorman, and Mercs will all be available starting today. Nintendo made the announcement on X and dropped a brief trailer for all three games.

ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron is the first sequel in the franchise, and it debuted on Genesis in 1993. While the aliens known as ToeJam and Earl were stranded on Earth in the first game, Panic on Funkotron brings the duo back to their home planet where new problems await them. Several humans stowed away on their journey to Funkotron, and it's up to ToeJam and Earl to make things right in this side-scrolling platformer.

Vectorman was a state-of-the-art game by 1995 standards, and also Genesis' answer to Super Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country. Developer BlueSky Software successfully utilized pre-rendered 3D models that made this 2D action-platformer stand out from other Genesis titles. The initial story for the game is similar to Pixar's WALL-E, because the Earth has been abandoned by humans who left robots behind to clean up their mess. The story diverges when one of the robots becomes a nuclear-powered tyrant known as WarHead, leaving Vectorman as the only robot on Earth who isn't under his control.