Nintendo has been very quiet about its plans for upcoming games this year, and in place of traditional Direct presentations, the company has made reveals through Twitter, as was the case with Paper Mario: The Origami King. That trend seems set to continue, as the company surprise-revealed that the Pikmin franchise is coming to the Nintendo Switch with Pikmin 3 Deluxe.
Pikmin isn"t one of Nintendo"s most recognizable franchises, but the first two games, released on the GameCube, developed a considerable following. The series entered a hiatus for nine years until the release of Pikmin 3 on the Wii U in 2013, but that console was a major failure for Nintendo, so it"s not completely surprising to see the game getting re-released on the Switch.
Pikmin 3 is a real-time strategy and exploration game, where players guide tiny creatures, known as Pikmin, through a planet known as PNF-404. The basic mechanics of the game see a multitude of Pikmin collaborating to achieve specific tasks to traverse the world, or being flung at enemies to deal damage.
With Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Nintendo is bundling in all the DLC content released for the game on the Wii U, plus there are new missions featuring captains Olimar and Louie - the characters that are usually responsible for coordinating Pikmin in the games. These new missions tell the stories that the characters went through before and after the main events of the game. This new release also adds the Piklopedia, which catalogs information about enemies that players have encountered during the game, and it includes a section with badges that can be obtained by completing certain conditions.
Pikmon 3 Deluxe is arriving on October 30, well over seven years after its original release. Right now, it"s one of very few Nintendo-published games expected to be coming in the rest of 2020, and the only one with a set date.