Can you remember the days of hooking up the GBA to the GameCube when playing The WindWaker and Four Swords? At the time, it was the ultimate novelty, being able to see and control the game on the GBA while someone else played on the TV - that was the future.
And in many ways, it was. You could say that it was the forerunner of Street Pass, the Wii U Game Pad, and eventually local play on the Switch. It took things one step further than the Link Cable for the Game Boy and allowed for a true couch, or at least floor co-op adventure.
Now, modder Robert Dale Smith has used the same iconic link cable and turned it into a method of controlling the Nintendo Switch with the GBA. It means that, if you have GBA games on Nintendo Switch Online or have recently bought FireRed or LeafGreen, you can use the original console to control them. It's kind of like using the N64 or GameCube controllers to play the games you used them for originally, except you can use your original GBA.
Nintendo Switch Game Boy Advanced Link Cable lives pic.twitter.com/Z9KhM0PRW1
— Robert Dale Smith (@RobertDaleSmith) May 18, 2026
Robert has cited his love of the GCN/GBA and the memories of using it from his youth as the driving force behind this project, and it's very cleverly put together. He explains on X that, as far as the Switch knows, the GBA is just a generic controller. The link cable itself has the ability to sideload 'a small multiboot ROM into memory and run it. Then it can be crafted to send and receive messages over the link cable to trigger actions.'
The post goes on to explain that there's two-way communication with the GBA via a pico adapter in the middle of the mod, which means that if software for the Switch were to be written, it could be possible to trade Pokémon from one to the other.
Robert says that once this project is fully complete, he's going to try tackling the Dreamcast next and make the screey display VMU output. He's slowly bringing back accessories we've lost and implementing his ideal features dreamed up while gaming as a kid into existence one step at a time, and it's exciting to watch his journey! It's also exciting to see the GBA getting some more time in the limelight again too - anyone fancy playing some Mario Kart: Super Circuit?
