Pikmin 4

Pikmin 4
File:Pikmin4 Direct Logo.png
The logo for Pikmin 4.
Japanese name	ピクミン4
Console	Nintendo Switch
Developer	TBA
Publisher	Nintendo
Genre	TBA
Players	TBA
Release date
Japan	2023
North America	2023
Europe	2023
Australia	2023
South Korea	2023

This article or section is about an upcoming or recently released game. The content here is subject to change as more information is discovered. All information added here must be verifiable and not speculative.

For the fourth installment in release order, see Hey! Pikmin.

Pikmin 4 is the upcoming fourth installment in the Pikmin series, planned for release in 2023. The game was officially announced on September 13^th, 2022, though its existence was hinted at several times prior to the official announcement.

Known information

Only one short trailer has been shown so far, from the September 13^th, 2022 Nintendo Direct presentation. Red Pikmin, Yellow Pikmin, and Blue Pikmin can be seen, along with Dwarf Bulborbs, Bulborbs, and a White Spectralids. A leader is also seen, who looks similar to Brittany but with unkempt red hair and a full red spacesuit with white gloves and boots and no skirt.

In the first shot, a garden-like area with bricks and tiles can be seen, and for the rest of the trailer, another garden scene with various man-made objects such as a bench, and a malfunctioning pocket watch hanging from a nail. A still screenshot was shown after the trailer with more man-made objects, including a water tap and a stepladder.

The game's logo was also revealed. The word "Pikmin" uses regular text rather than being made of Pikmin flowers (like in the previous main series games), but the number 4 is still made of Pikmin flowers, this time with yellow petals.

Shigeru Miyamoto said after the trailer that the Nintendo Switch's controls have made controlling the game simpler, allowing the player to focus more on strategic planning (or "段取り^?" as the developers refer to it). He also said that players would be able to view the world from the Pikmin's perspective near the ground.

History

Pre-announcement

Before Pikmin 4's official announcement in 2022, various information about the game was shared by Pikmin series creator Shigeru Miyamoto. This information was sparse and sometimes contradictory, and the lack of official statements by Nintendo made it difficult to work out what was happening with Pikmin 4. It is possible that some of these statements were referring to Hey! Pikmin.

The first of these mentions was on November 6^th, 2014, when Shigeru Miyamoto was being interviewed on the recently-released Pikmin Short Movies, during which he said “Continually launching campaigns after the release of software will lay the groundwork for the next iteration of "Pikmin" in the future. And needless to say, we want it to be one of the motivations for potential consumers to purchase Wii U. We are making a variety of different efforts.”, indicating the possibility of another Pikmin game on the Wii U. On January 5^th, 2015, Smosh Games uploaded an interview with Miyamoto, in which he stated “Well, I wanted to particularly take Pikmin and bring them into sort of that short movie format just because... within the game, we weren't able to really depict the Pikmin individually in the ways that we wanted to. And so, of course, I still have a lot of ideas about what I want to do with Pikmin, but nothing's decided yet. But of course, we will continue to make Pikmin games.”

On September 7^th, 2015, Eurogamer unveiled that, in an exclusive interview, Miyamoto had confirmed the development of Pikmin 4, and claimed that “it's actually very close to completion. Pikmin teams are always working on the next one.” In the same article, Eurogamer also revealed a separate statement from a Nintendo representative, which said “We can confirm that Pikmin 4 is in development but that is all we can confirm at present.”. It is not known if the "Pikmin 4" mentioned in that quote is the actual name for the game that Nintendo used, whether it's a placeholder name or not, or if it's just the result of the quote's English translation. (Of note is the fact that the URL for the Eurogamer interview's page starts with "2014-07-20". Since the URLs of all news article pages on eurogamer.net begin with the article's publication date, this could possibly mean that the article was meant to be revealed shortly after the interview, but was held until September of 2015. A later article on the site states that the interview took place in July 2015.)

On July 7^th, 2016, Gamerant interviewed Miyamoto and asked him about the status of the game's development and why there hadn't been any news in the past few months. To this, he replied “Yes, you are right, and we’re working on [Pikmin 4]. So, you know, when we’re in development we have to create a list of priorities and it has been hard to kind of fit that into that list, but we’re hopefully starting to see that on the list now.”

A second Eurogamer interview with Miyamoto about Pikmin was conducted at E3 2017, during which he stated “I've been told not to share anything about this from PR, but I can tell you it is progressing.” Nothing was said about Pikmin 4 between this interview and the official announcement.

Pre-release

Pikmin 4 was officially announced in a Nintendo Direct presentation on September 13^th, 2022. This announcement was in a section presented by Shigeru Miyamoto, which also promoted Pikmin Bloom and the upcoming Mario movie. A short trailer was shown, featuring a few scenes in a garden-like area and announcing a release window of 2023. Miyamoto provided some more basic details of the game after the trailer, and also showed off a new Pikmin T-shirt design based off the game's logo, which was made available to buy shortly afterwards.

Gallery

• P4 Reveal Garden 1.jpg

  The first shot from the announcement trailer.

• P4 Reveal Garden 2.jpg

  The second shot.

• P4 Reveal Garden 3.jpg

  The third shot.

• P4 Reveal Garden 3 Logo.jpg

  The third shot with the logo.

• P4 Reveal Fight.jpg

  Pikmin fighting a Bulborb.

Videos

• Announcement trailer
• Nintendo Direct (Contains one screenshot not present in the announcement trailer at 1:00:05.)

See also

• Pikmin 3
• Hey! Pikmin