Nintendo is a legendary developer for multiple reasons, but one of the key ones is that they have a library of IPs that they can pull out and make just about any game with, and it’s likely to be a big hit. Or, if they wanted to “get serious,” they would put serious effort into every game featuring one of their characters, and it would be pretty much a guaranteed best-seller. We saw that with the Nintendo Switch from start to finish, including seeing a “renaissance moment” with series like Pikmin. The RTS franchise had been around since the Nintendo GameCube era but only had certain levels of success.
Sure, you know about Captain Olimar, and you’ve seen him and his alien plant friends in a certain fighting game, but that didn’t mean the franchise was one of Nintendo’s best-selling ones. In fact, across the first three entries, the sales were decent but not booming. You could even have classified it as one of the more “niche” franchises of the bunch. Then, with Pikmin 4, the dev team went full-tilt to try and make the game as accessible to everyone as possible while also keeping what made the game fun. That’s what allowed it to become the best-selling entry in its franchise, including doing very well in Japan, which the series had not done before.
That brings us to now, where on Twitter and Reddit, people are debating a new rumor that says a spinoff title for the series is in development currently.
The person who dropped the rumor isn’t known for accuracy, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong on this one. “A broken clock is right twice a day,” and all that. Plus, it wouldn’t be odd in the slightest for Nintendo to see the success of the most recent game and attempt to capitalize on it in a different way.
It also wouldn’t be the first time the series has had a spinoff, as there was a 3DS title featuring Olimar many years ago. Sadly, it wasn’t that big of a success, which is likely why a follow-up wasn’t made, and it took many more years for the Switch entry to arrive.
If one is being made, it would likely be for the Switch 2, which is coming out next year. Given the gaming style of the mainline series, it’s hard to say how they would frame the spinoff.
That said, even if this spinoff isn’t true, it’s fair to say that Pikmin 5 will likely happen eventually.
