Nintendo Switch Online adds 'EarthBound' and 'EarthBound Beginnings'

engadget.com:

Classic role-playing games EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound will be available on Nintendo Switch Online starting today. Safe travels, Ness and friends.

EarthBound Beginnings is also known as Mother, and it originally hit the NES (locally known as the Famicom) in Japan in 1989. Its sequel, EarthBound, is a SNES classic that hit Western markets in 1995, and the entire series has been pivotal to the RPG genre, with mechanics and visual stylings that still influence games to this day. The final entry in the series, Mother 3, landed on Game Boy Advance in Japan in 2006, and it's never been officially localized for English audiences.

Nintendo Switch Online is a subscription service that unlocks online play, cloud saves and access to a library of NES and SNES games on the Switch. An additional paid tier, dubbed the Expansion Pack, adds access to N64 and Sega Genesis titles. Switch Online costs $20 annually, while the Expansion Pack is $50 per year.

Today's announcement wasn't a total surprise — EarthBound creator Shigesato Itoi tweeted some hints just hours before the Nintendo Direct went live.