Nintendo Switch Online Adds Clu Clu Land, Kuru Kuru Kururin Icons for August
Nintendo has kicked off August’s Nintendo Switch Online rewards early, pairing two of its quirkiest retro titles for the latest round of profile icons. As first detailed by Nintendo Everything, the new “Play to Unlock” set spotlights 1984’s maze puzzler Clu Clu Land and the Game Boy Advance rotation-physics game Kuru Kuru Kururin, with both sets going live at the start of the month.
Unlike the recurring Mario and Animal Crossing icon batches that rotate monthly, this “Play to Unlock” tier requires subscribers to actually boot up the featured games before the icons unlock. To gain access to these icons, players need to boot up their system apps, and for Clu Clu Land that means starting the game on NES – Nintendo Classics.
Kuru Kuru Kururin Locked Behind the Expansion Pack Tier
The Kururin half of the promotion carries a catch for casual subscribers. Kuru Kuru Kururin sits on the Game Boy Advance app, which requires a membership to the Expansion Pack tier rather than the base Nintendo Switch Online subscription. That mirrors how Nintendo has gated other Game Boy and Game Boy Advance library icons in the past, effectively reserving the full icon set for its higher-priced membership plan.
GoNintendo corroborated the split, noting that Clu Clu Land is part of the NES Nintendo Classics while Kuru Kuru Kururin is included in the GBA Nintendo Classics, meaning Kuru Kuru Kururin is locked behind a Switch Online Expansion Pack subscription. Nintendo Life separately confirmed the pairing, reporting that Nintendo has released new Switch Online “play to unlock” icons based on Clu Clu Land and Kuru Kuru Kururin.
Five Icons Each, 5 Platinum Points a Pop
Once unlocked, the reward pool is identical for both games. Both games have five icons available, all characters, and each one costs 5 Platinum Points on My Nintendo. That keeps the entry cost low compared with some past character sets, which have run as high as 10 Platinum Points per design according to Nintendo Life’s ongoing icon tracker.
Crucially, claiming an icon isn’t tied to an active subscription forever. Players will always be able to use these icons in the future, and this applies even if their Nintendo Switch Online subscription ends at any point. That permanence has been a consistent feature of the Missions & Rewards program since Nintendo introduced it, giving lapsed subscribers no reason to worry about losing cosmetics they’ve already redeemed.
Window Runs Through September 3, With Splatoon and Animal Crossing Also in Rotation
Subscribers don’t have unlimited time to grind out the requirement. All of these icons will be offered until September 3, 2026, after which new games will take their place in the “Play to Unlock” slot. That gives players roughly a month to fire up either the NES or GBA app and clear the in-game trigger needed to make the icon elements purchasable.
The Clu Clu Land and Kururin set isn’t the only icon activity on Nintendo Switch Online right now. Perfectly Nintendo’s tracking of the service’s current mission board shows Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Splatoon 3 Splatfest rewards running in parallel windows through early August, alongside the usual evergreen Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Mario Odyssey icon pools that never leave rotation.
A Deep Cut Pairing for Nintendo’s Back Catalogue
The choice to pair these two specific games is a neat piece of trivia for longtime Nintendo fans. Clu Clu Land’s English title is itself a play on the Japanese onomatopoeia “Kuru Kuru,” the very same wordplay that gave Kuru Kuru Kururin its name decades later on Game Boy Advance, tying a 1984 NES launch title to a 2001 handheld puzzler through nothing more than a shared naming quirk.
For Australian and New Zealand subscribers, both games are accessible through the same regional Nintendo Classics apps bundled into standard and Expansion Pack memberships, so there’s no extra regional gating beyond the tier requirement already flagged for Kururin. Anyone chasing a complete icon collection has a full month to clear the playthrough requirement before Nintendo swaps in the next retro pairing.
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