(Image credit: Nintendo)
In a rather unusual twist, Nintendo’s Pikmin 3 Deluxe has just snagged a Switch 2 rating from PEGI. Honestly, considering the announced lineup for Switch 2-enhanced titles, it’s puzzling how Pikmin 4 isn’t among them. Just last month, the game, now two years old, rolled out a fun new update featuring a Photo Mode, additional difficulty levels, and Decor Pikmin—those adorably dressed little characters sporting random items, reminiscent of Pikmin Bloom. However, there were no enhancements like performance upgrades or those all-important mouse controls. A real missed opportunity, if you ask me.
So, imagine my surprise when PEGI (Europe’s rating authority) listed a rating for Pikmin on Switch 2, only for it to be for the five-year-old Pikmin 3 Deluxe, a re-release of the original Wii U title that’s just about to celebrate its twelfth birthday. Other titles, such as Super Mario Odyssey, have this dual rating on the PEGI site, suggesting Pikmin 3 Deluxe might get a complimentary Switch 2 update—though it won’t be listed as a ‘Nintendo Switch 2 Edition’ since those earn separate ratings (as we’ve seen with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild).
The decision to prioritize Pikmin 3 is certainly curious, but this could hint (or at least I hope) that bigger plans are brewing for Pikmin 4. Games like Kirby and the Forgotten Land received DLC alongside their Nintendo Switch 2 Edition launches, so who knows? Maybe a new area awaits exploration in Pikmin 4, added right alongside the anticipated upgrades. Fingers crossed!
Despite being known as the creator of Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto has once again declared that Pikmin is his favorite project: “I spent a lot of time the past 5, 6 years really wanting to grow Pikmin.”