Nintendo opened their latest Direct with Pikmin 4, confirming the quirky action strategy game will release for Nintendo Switch on 21st July 2023 and giving us plenty of new gameplay to check out.
Some fresh gameplay was shown during the stream, where Red Pikmin and new Ice Pikmin were featured quite heavily. As with previous games, each type of Pikmin has different strengths – Red Pikmin are fine against fire, Blue Pikmin can swim, while the new Ice Pikmin are great for freezing enemies. You’ll need strength of numbers to win in battles, with hordes of Pikmin following you and being thrown into the fight.
But what’s that furry creature? That’s not a Pikmin, that’s a dog! Oatchi, the bipedal Space Dog, will join your adventure. Oatchi can be commanded to smash through obstacles and drag heavy objects around, but is also very handy for riding around on. You can hop onto Oatchi’s back and then swim through water, or ride your canine buddy into battle.
Pikmin 4 was announced in September last year, with Shigeru Miyamoto not showing any gameplay at the time, but promising that it would deliver a new, lower perspective and more accessible gameplay with simpler controls. This enables what he referred to as ‘Dandori’, the ability to more strategically plan and put them into place. You can certainly see that feed into this gameplay trailer, as you can see more of the environment around you, giving it more of an action game feel.
Seeing this game might pique your interest in the previous games of the series. Pikmin 3 came out for Nintendo Switch in 2020, one of the many, many, many games ported from Wii U to Switch. We said in our Pikmin 3 Deluxe review, “Pikmin 3 Deluxe is yet another Wii U transplant though one that slots seamlessly into Switch’s first party line-up. Although unwieldy and slow to start, Nintendo’s charming inventiveness has produced an intriguing, if not excellent, entry in the strategy genre.”
