After over a decade of waiting,Metroid Dreadis finally real. The eponymousMetroid 5was teased to have begun development all the way back in the DS era via a possibly coincidental secret message inMetroid Prime 3: Corruption. It seems like the game was always intended to continue the story of the 2DMetroid’s,picking up whereFusionleft off. Samus Aran will be exploring a new, desolate location alongside her ship’s AI, Adam. Hounding her is a small army of nigh-indestructible robots that appear to be chasing her because of some sort of compromise in their systems. It continues theMetroidseries' shift into horror thatFusionstarted so many years ago, and the fanbase is in awe over its sudden and impressive return.
With how much of a revivalMetroid Dreadfeels like, many are hoping that the trend continues for other franchises. Nintendo has shown at its E3 2021 Direct that it’s still willing and able to resurrect dormant IPs withAdvance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, and by helpingFatal Frameand theWarioWareseries make a comeback. In this atmosphere, it feels like just about any dormant Nintendo IP can suddenly return, but the most likely one probably won’t feel so sudden in retrospect. If there was ever a time forPikmin 4to be shown off, it would be now.
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The History of Pikmin 4
Pikmin 4as a game hasn’t really existed in the public eye at all, though it has been referenced. The last majorPikminrelease wasPikmin 3on the Wii U in 2013. In a 2015 interview with Eurogamer, Shigeru Miyamoto alluded to a “Pikmin 4” that was nearing completion. Many fans were surprised, but pleasantly so, as there had been no real indication of such a thing up until that point.Pikminhad always had a smaller yet deeply devoted crowd, so Nintendo’s stance on the series had not been clear. At any rate, fans waited with open arms for the reveal trailer that they expected to drop at any moment. Unfortunately, they are still waiting.
It’s unclear what’s happened toPikmin 4in the years since. It could have encountered some fatal issues and may have even restarted development more than once. A different game titledHey! Pikminwas released in July 2017 as a 3DS game, which Miyamoto followed up on by clarifying that it wasn’t thePikmin 4he’d been talking about.Hey! Pikminwas a 2D puzzle-platformer thatrecalled mechanics that existed inPikminbut doesn’t quite feel like aPikmingame itself. Fan reception was lukewarm, and everyone went back to waiting for thePikmin 4they were hoping was just around the corner.
After that, there was a huge gap inPikminproducts. Nothing came out for or about the franchise for many years, with it completely missing the Nintendo Switch’s launch. It seemed likePikminwas consigned to live on as a small part ofSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate, with no new game of its own. Suddenly, in late 2020, during a huge drought in Nintendo games, thePikminfranchise suddenly burst back into the scene withPikmin 3 Deluxe. This was a rerelease of the Wii U title bundled with all the DLC, and a few new modes and features that fans were happy to have. It was also one of the last major Wii U originals to be ported off the system.
Furthermore, a little while later,Pokemon Gocreator Niantic announced that it was working on anaugmented realityPikminmobile app. With the app having just gone through testing in Singapore, it suddenly feels like thePikminfranchise is relevant again, and the hope forPikmin 4has been rekindled.
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Not only hasPikmincome back to life with the possibility of a new game, so hasMetroid. A big reason whyPikmin 4feels possible at all is that theMetroidseries has had the same arc, beat for beat, and is now finally recovering withMetroid DreadandMetroid Prime 4.Metroid: Other M, the 2010 Wii action game by Team Ninja and some key staff at Nintendo, was such a disaster that itnearly killedMetroidcompletely. The series was hooked up toSuper Smash Bros.for life support, and its most notable appearance in the next few years was alongsidePikminas part of the minigames in the 2012 Wii U launch titleNintendo Land.
It was only a little while beforeMetroidtruly joinedPikminin its darkest hour. After years of waiting for a continuation to the 2D or 3DMetroidgames, fans were met with a surpriseMetroidannouncement for the 3DS in 2016: thedisappointingFederation Force. Even more so thanHey! Pikmin, this cooperative first-person shooter became infamous for being nothing like what fans wanted. It’s hard to say if theMetroid Prime 4teaser in its final moments justified its existence, with fans still feeling bitter about it years later. After that, theMetroidseries went silent. Rumors flew wildly about the possibility of a Switch re-release of theMetroid Primetrilogy, but nothing ever manifested.
Suddenly, in Nintendo’s 2017 E3 Direct,Metroid Prime 4got a teaser. And then, shocking the world,Metroid: Samus Returnswas announced for the 3DS in the subsequent Nintendo Treehouse stream. Now, in a manner similar toPikmin 3 Deluxea few years later, a newMetroidgame was being released to test the waters. The experiment was a success, and in a few short years,Metroid Prime 4was deep in developmentfollowing a public reboot andMetroid Dreadwas revealed a few months before its own release. It is a time of resurgence forMetroid, and withPikminfollowing such a similar trajectory, there’s a good chancePikmin 4could finally see the light of day in a couple of years.
Metroid Dreadis slated to release on October 8 for Nintendo Switch.
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