Modder bridges the Game Boy Advance and Switch 2 to transfer Pokémon
A modder and hobbyist’s custom circuit board just achieved what Nintendo’s official tools still can’t do, and you can’t buy one. This comes from Develop Drewworks, who goes by @ahenly17 online and posted a video of a homemade adapter completing a Pokémon transfer between the original Game Boy Advance and a Nintendo Switch 2, two handheld gaming consoles released nearly 24 years apart.
A third-party solution to the problem?
The modder pulled off this feat soon after Nintendo announced the closure of Pokémon Bank, a cloud-based Pokémon storage app that let players store up to 3,000 Pokémon.
Previously, you could transfer your Pokémon from Pokémon Bank to Pokémon Home and then to the Nintendo Switch 2 or the original Switch, but this feature was limited to the Nintendo 3DS family of systems and required multiple hoops through apps and console generations to migrate your Pokémon from the GBA to the Nintendo Switch 2.
Unfortunately, the Pokémon Bank cloud-storage app is sunsetting its servers on February 25, 2027.
That’s where Drewworks steps into the picture. On September 3, he showcased a GBA connected to the Nintendo Switch 2 using a circuit board he built himself, and the two handhelds could transfer Pokémon. Drewworks demonstrated his Pokémon transfer on X with a video and the note:
However, Drewworks hasn’t showcased a circuit diagram or firmware and hasn’t confirmed which Pokémon game he was running on either handheld, so nobody outside of his modding desk knows what this transfer system is compatible with.
An impressive accomplishment with limited utility
The GBA houses a link port, a six-pin 3.3-volt serial connector that supports several hardware modes, including an 8-bit and 32-bit Normal mode for basic transfers, a 16-bit Multi-Play mode for up to four players, and a General Purpose mode that simply toggles pins. Nintendo’s own trading system, dating back to Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire, allowed the transfer of Pokémon at a hardware level rather than through Nintendo’s own apps or Multi-Play library.
None of these features appear on the Nintendo Switch 2, which communicates with peripherals over USB-C or Bluetooth. Therefore, Drewworks decided to bridge the two handheld console generations using a microcontroller that communicates with the GBA serial connector on one end and USB-C on the other, serving as a translation layer rather than simply relaying information.
This comes at a timely moment, as Nintendo’s support page has confirmed the closure of Pokémon Bank on February 25, 2027, at 7:00 p.m. PST. The service allowed users to transfer Pokémon from older games through multiple hardware and software leaps, including directly from the 3DS to the Switch 2. After the service shuts down, anything left on older hardware will stay there. Beyond that, Drewworks says the adapter still needs plenty of work and has no release date since it is a passion project and likely won’t go up for sale.
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