‘Pikmin 4’ is finally coming to Nintendo Switch

nme.com:

Pikmin 4 is finally coming to the Nintendo Switch, and will release sometime in 2023.The game was announced during today’s (September 13) Nintendo Direct Stream, alongside a brief trailer.

While the trailer really doesn’t give anything much away, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto said that the game would allow fans to experience it from “a new perspective.” The trailer, interestingly, already offers a new perspective on the Pikmin – showing them at ground-level for the first time.“Nintendo Switch has made controlling the game simpler, meaning you can concentrate on the core essence of Pikmin gameplay,” said Miyamoto. “We call it Dandori in Japanese, or strategically planning, deploying, and commanding the Pikmin.”There isn’t a huge amount to go on just yet, but the fact that Pikmin 4 is releasing at all is cause for celebration among fans.Pikmin 4’s release window of 2023 will mean that there has been a full decade between mainline releases – interrupted only by the 2017 title Hey!

Pikmin on the Nintendo 3DS and the 2021 release of Pikmin Bloom, a mobile game from Pokémon Go creator Niantic.The announcement has therefore been long-awaited, since Pikmin 4 has been trapped in development hell for nearly a decade.

The previous mainline entry to the franchise, Pikmin 3, released for the Wii U back in July 2013 before eventually being re-released on the Nintendo Switch.Pikmin 4 was first confirmed back in 2015, when Miyamoto told Eurogamer that the game was in development and “very close to completion.” Despite this optimistic stance, no further updates were provided about the game (outside of confirming its continued existence) until today.Pikmin 4 is hardly the only big-name release announced during today’s Nintendo Direct..