Skip to main content

You can try Nintendo Switch Online for free this July Fourth weekend

Cloud saves, which are supported through Nintendo Switch Online
Nintendo

Ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Nintendo will hold a free seven-day Nintendo Switch Online trial for all Switch owners, even if you’ve had a Nintendo Switch Online subscription before or participated in a previous free trial.

Nintendo Switch Online is Nintendo’s version of PS Plus or Xbox Game Pass Core. It gives members access to online play in games like Splatoon 3 or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, cloud backups for game saves, some exclusive discounts and game trials, and some retro game libraries. You can even buy Game Vouchers to get two first-party Nintendo games for $100 during this trial period, although you will have to spend them before the trial ends.

While the ones for Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, and Sega Genesis are locked to the more expensive Expansion Pass that you’ll still have to pay for, this seven-day trial will still give you full access to the NES, Super NES, and Game Boy libraries in Nintendo Switch Online. If you’re looking for some recommendations on what to play from those game catalogs, you should check out The Legend of Zelda and StarTropics on NES, Donkey Kong Country and Earthbound on SNES, and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble on Game Boy.

It’s nice that this Nintendo Switch Online free trial offer is being refreshed ahead of a holiday weekend when many people will be off work. Nintendo Switch players can start the free trial today as long as they don’t have an active individual or family membership.

Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Apple Arcade’s most popular game is coming to PlayStation, Switch, and PC
Hello Kitty bakes food in a cafe in Hello Kitty: Island Adventure.

Apple Arcade hit Hello Kitty: Island Adventure is coming to new platforms in 2025. The Animal Crossing-like life sim will launch on Nintendo Switch and PC in early 2025. It’ll be a timed console exclusive for Nintendo before coming to PlayStation 4 and PS5 shortly after.

Hello Kitty: Island Adventure is Apple Arcade’s most popular game, Arcade Senior Director Alex Rofman told me in an interview earlier this year. The iOS game takes the basic concept of Animal Crossing and adds in popular Sanrio characters. That experience has only been available to Apple Arcade subscribers for the past year, but it’ll soon make its way to more platforms.

Read more
Everything announced at the June 2024 Nintendo Direct
An image of the Nintendo Switch - OLED Model Mario Red Edition.

What may be one of the last Nintendo Direct presentations entirely focused on the Nintendo Switch has arrived. While Nintendo was still not ready to talk about its popular platform's successor just yet, this Direct showed that there are still plenty of compelling Nintendo Switch games on the way. We already knew about titles like Luigi's Mansion 2 HD and Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, but we also learned about new games like Mario & Luigi: Brothership, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

We also finally got a look at Metroid Prime 4, which now has the full title of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Third-party companies showed up as well, with Square Enix unveiling some HD-2D remakes of Dragon Quest games and Capcom revealing Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. To help you keep track of everything that got announced, here's a full recap of everything shown during the June 2024 Nintendo Direct.

Read more
The First Descendant Twitch drops: how to redeem and all rewards
A playable character hold a mysterious orb in The First Descendant's gamescom trailer.

Publishers want to get as many eyes on its games as possible for launch, which is where the power of Twitch drops comes into play. The First Descendant is releasing on July 2, and by watching specific streamers playing the game, you can unlock some exclusive rewards. To our knowledge, these will only be available through these Twitch drops, so you only have a limited time to collect them all. You are probably eager to get into the game and start playing it yourself, but let's quickly go over how to redeem these rewards and what they are.
How to redeem Twitch drops
Starting at midnight PT on July 2 and running through midnight on July 29, watching any Twitch stream under the category of The First Descendant will start counting toward your watch time for the rewards.

Before you start watching any streams, though, make sure you link your Twitch account to your The First Descendant account on this page.

Read more