Pikmin 4 lives, and it's coming in 2023

Pikmin 4
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Pikmin 4 has finally been re-confirmed, and it's due out in 2023.

Today's Nintendo Direct presentation only showed some brief snippets of the game, but no direct gameplay footage. Series creator says you'll be able to play "from the pikmin's perspective near the ground," suggesting something of a move away from the isometric perspective of the originals.

While the perspective may be a bit different, Miyamoto promises that the new game will feature the same classic "dandori" gameplay of the originals, so you'll still be "strategically planning, deploying, and commanding the pikmin." Miyamoto also says that "Nintendo Switch has made controlling the game simpler," though there are no specific details on what that means.

Way back in 2015, Shigeru Miyamoto was quoted by Eurogamer as saying the game was "very close to completion," though very little about the game had been seen since then.

The last new mainline Pikmin game was Pikmin 3 on Wii U, though that game got an upgraded re-release on Switch. Suffice to say, the official re-announcement of Pikmin 4 has been a long-awaited moment for series fans. (Like me, I'm the series fan.) Nintendo also released the middling puzzle-platformer Hey! Pikmin for 3DS in 2017.

The mobile AR game Pikmin Bloom, which originally launched 2021, also got a quick highlight as part of today's presentation.

Check out all the announcements from the Nintendo Direct for September 2022, including the long-awaited release date and title reveal for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and the official debut of Fire Emblem Engage.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.