Classic arcade added

Nintendo just slipped three old Namco games into the Nintendo Switch Online library on April 8 and April 9, 2026, depending on region, and one of them is Pac-Man, which is unusual because Pac-Man is one of the few arcade names big enough to sell on its own. The other two are Mendel Palace and The Tower of Druaga, and all three sit inside the Nintendo Entertainment System app for subscribers on Switch and Switch 2. (nintendoeverything.com) This was not a new app tier or a paid expansion drop. Nintendo’s official Nintendo Switch Online classics page says the base subscription already includes a library of more than 150 retro games across systems, and these three were added to the Nintendo Entertainment System side of that catalog. (nintendo.com) Pac-Man is the attention-grabber because the character is older than the Nintendo Entertainment System itself. Bandai Namco’s maze game began in arcades in 1980, and the version added here is the 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System release rather than a modern remake or the separate paid Pac-Man collections already sold on Switch. (nintendolife.com) (nintendo.com) Mendel Palace is the deeper cut. Nintendo Life identifies it as a 1989 puzzle game developed by Game Freak before Game Freak became globally known for Pokémon, so this drop quietly adds an early piece of that studio’s history to a service most people treat as a nostalgia shelf. (nintendolife.com) The Tower of Druaga is older than both of them in concept, because it started as a 1984 arcade game built around climbing floors of a tower. The Nintendo Switch Online version is the Nintendo Entertainment System adaptation, and Nintendo Everything notes that it counts as an import, which means subscribers are getting a game that was not part of the standard United States childhood memory of the system. (nintendoeverything.com) That mix tells you what Nintendo is doing with this service in 2026. The company is not only loading it with first-party names like Mario and Zelda, but also using outside publishers like Bandai Namco to make the catalog feel broader, with one mass-market icon, one cult puzzle game, and one historically important dungeon crawler in the same update. (nintendo.com) (gematsu.com) It is also a reminder that Nintendo Switch Online works differently from buying retro games à la carte. Nintendo’s store still sells separate Pac-Man products like Pac-Man Museum+ and Arcade Archives Pac-Man, while the subscription version drops a specific Nintendo Entertainment System edition into the rental-style classics library at no added charge beyond membership. (nintendo.com 1) (nintendo.com 2) For handheld play, these are the kinds of games that fit the machine better than a 60-hour role-playing game. Pac-Man runs on short loops, Mendel Palace is built around single-screen puzzle stages, and The Tower of Druaga breaks progress into floors, so each one works in the kind of 10-minute session people actually use on a commute or a couch. (nintendoeverything.com) (noisypixel.net) The small surprise is not that Nintendo added retro games. The surprise is that in April 2026, a subscription library old enough to feel settled is still finding room for gaps like Pac-Man and for oddities like an early Game Freak puzzle game, which makes the service feel a little less like a museum and a little more like somebody is still stocking the shelves. (nintendo.com) (nintendolife.com)