A couple of years ago, we were joking around because Pikmin 4 — the fourth mainline title in the Pikmin series — had been announced five years ago with not much else to go on. Fast-forward to today and, well, we’re still waiting!
We’re just having a little bit of fun here, but, strangely, the last thing we heard about Pikmin 4 was in an interview with Eurogamer in 2017. Yep, that’s right! Pikmin creator Shigeru Miyamoto sat down with the good folks over at the site during E3 2017 (remember E3?), where he said to them “…I can tell you it is progressing.”
Thanks to @NintendoMemo — who reshared a snippet of the article today in memory of its publication almost five years to the day later — we’re now really sad that we’re still waiting for a brand new Pikmin game.
So where are our cute little space plants? In the years since we’ve seen the release of Hey! Pikmin on the 3DS in 2017 and Pikmin Bloom, Niantic’s mobile game. If either of these are meant to be Pikmin 4, then we’d love to know! But we would really love a new Pikmin game to play on the Switch.
We came up with a list of theories as to what could’ve happened to Pikmin 4 back in 2020. Some of these are out-of-date, of course, and
And, well, we suppose we did get Pikmin 3 Deluxe back in 2020 — and that was fabulous — but it only makes us want more from Olimar and friends. All we want to know is what’s happening with Pikmin — should we abandon hope of a fourth numbered title?
Perhaps there’s just a shred of hope here (or maybe we’re expecting way too much) but maybe that rumoured Nintendo Direct at the end of the month can shed some light on the whereabouts of Pikmin and co.? We know we said it’s unlikely in our list below, but 3/10 means there’s at least a sliver of hope!
Whatever has happened to Pikmin 4, it’s okay really. If Nintendo is still working on a true numbered sequel, then it can take its time. If not, then we’d be disappointed, but at least we’d know where we stand.
Otherwise, happy fifth anniversary to Pikmin 4 “progressing”, even if Miyamoto technically wasn’t meant to say anything. Perhaps next time we write about this game it’ll be better news.
