Image: Jim Norman / Nintendo Life
With a Nintendo Direct right around the corner, it was only a matter of time before the speculation began about its contents. It’s been ticking away for a few weeks now with all of those Ocarina of Time rumours, and today, an NSO theory has entered the fray.
As spotted on Bluesky by dataminer @luigiblood, the NES, SNES and Game Boy ‘Nintendo Classics’ libraries have recently been updated with what is apparently a ‘challenge mode’, though it remains inaccessible for the time being. Hmm.
By the sounds of it, we should think of these challenges as something akin to NES Remix, only… not remixed. Luigiblood states that the challenges start from a specific point in select games, and each comes with its own unique success and fail states. It apparently all hinges on the NSO home menu to see and access the missions themselves.
They have implemented challenges. Stuff akin to NES Remix (not the Remix kind, from what I can tell though). You cannot access them yet, you have to wait until the NSO app updates.
I will not reveal the games, y’all will probably find out soon.
— Yakumono (@luigiblood.bsky.social) 2026-06-08T07:12:14.266Z
Naturally, we’re taking all of the above with a pinch of salt until Nintendo announces anything official. That said, the currently inaccessible challenges certainly sound like they could be an announcement for tomorrow’s Direct — something to break up what we’re hoping will be a jam-packed show.
So, will we all be firing up NSO next weekend to speed through some SNES Zelda and Mario? We’ll have to wait and see.
Would you be keen for some NSO challenges? Do you think this theory will manifest into reality tomorrow? Let us know in the comments.
[source bsky.app]
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Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since.