Events gradually pop up on Nintendo Switch Online service that offer redeemable icon elements, such as Cohozuna and Big Man from Splatoon 3, and Kicks from Animal Crossing. Events are available for a limited time but may pop up again showing past elements. Normally you need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to redeem them, but a few events required Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack instead - so I couldn’t redeem the Super Mario 64 penguin icon since it required that.

Now all of a sudden, you need to play games one to three times depending on the event, in order to redeem the icon elements with points, but you still need an active Nintendo Switch Online membership to redeem the elements. The ones that require you to play three times to redeem icon elements require you to play the game three times, 24 hours in between each session, and the sessions must be undertaken while online and still having an active Nintendo Switch Online membership. You can’t just launch the game once or even three times in a row in these instances. So now all of a sudden you need to basically own the game for at least two to three days. You could redeem event icon elements without owning the games before this change happened, as there was no such requirement.

This is despite the icon elements still being on a rotation - the current Super Mario World icon elements are only available to redeem until April 1, and the Animal Crossing ones are claimed to switch on Mondays.

I hope they do one of three things. One, they revert this change entirely, and remove the gameplay requirement. Two, they keep the game play requirement, but make it so you don’t actually need Nintendo Switch Online to redeem them or count towards the game play requirement. Or three, they now have the entire element list available at all times - but in order to get the older icon elements outside of special events, you need to meet the game play requirements like right now, while special events will let you redeem the elements without having to meet game play requirements.