---
title: "mGBA Link Cable — How to Trade Pokémon and Play GBA Multiplayer Games"
canonical_url: https://emudesk.com/issues/mgba-link-cable-pokemon-trading-gba-emulator
content_locale: en
source_locale: en
entity_type: issue
index_status: index
published_at: 2026-08-31T18:22:23.000Z
updated_at: 2026-09-01T00:45:02.425Z
freshness_status: fresh
---

# mGBA Link Cable — How to Trade Pokémon and Play GBA Multiplayer Games

I want to trade Pokémon or play multiplayer GBA games in mGBA, but I do not know how the link cable feature works. mGBA has a "Link" option in the menu but I cannot figure out how to connect two game instances together to actually trade. Do I need two ROMs? Two computers? Is there a way to do this on a single PC?

I am specifically trying to get Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen/Emerald to recognize a second player so I can trade evolutions (Gengar, Alakazam, Machamp) or access the Union Room.