After over a decade of waiting, Metroid Dread is finally real. The eponymous Metroid 5 was teased to have begun development all the way back in the DS era via a possibly coincidental secret message in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It seems like the game was always intended to continue the story of the 2D Metroid's, picking up where Fusion left 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 the Metroid series' shift into horror that Fusion started so many years ago, and the fanbase is in awe over its sudden and impressive return.
With how much of a revival Metroid Dread feels 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 with Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, and by helping Fatal Frame and the WarioWare series 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 for Pikmin 4 to be shown off, it would be now.
The History of Pikmin 4
Pikmin 4 as a game hasn't really existed in the public eye at all, though it has been referenced. The last major Pikmin release was Pikmin 3 on 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. Pikmin had 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 to Pikmin 4 in the years since. It could have encountered some fatal issues and may have even restarted development more than once. A different game titled Hey! Pikmin was released in July 2017 as a 3DS game, which Miyamoto followed up on by clarifying that it wasn’t the Pikmin 4 he’d been talking about. Hey! Pikmin was a 2D puzzle-platformer that recalled mechanics that existed in Pikmin but doesn't quite feel like a Pikmin game itself. Fan reception was lukewarm, and everyone went back to waiting for the Pikmin 4 they were hoping was just around the corner.
After that, there was a huge gap in Pikmin products. Nothing came out for or about the franchise for many years, with it completely missing the Nintendo Switch's launch. It seemed like Pikmin was consigned to live on as a small part of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with no new game of its own. Suddenly, in late 2020, during a huge drought in Nintendo games, the Pikmin franchise suddenly burst back into the scene with Pikmin 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 Go creator Niantic announced that it was working on an augmented reality Pikmin mobile app. With the app having just gone through testing in Singapore, it suddenly feels like the Pikmin franchise is relevant again, and the hope for Pikmin 4 has been rekindled.
Metroid Dread and Pikmin 4 Have A Lot In Common
Not only has Pikmin come back to life with the possibility of a new game, so has Metroid. A big reason why Pikmin 4 feels possible at all is that the Metroid series has had the same arc, beat for beat, and is now finally recovering with Metroid Dread and Metroid Prime 4. Metroid: Other M, the 2010 Wii action game by Team Ninja and some key staff at Nintendo, was such a disaster that it nearly killed Metroid completely. The series was hooked up to Super Smash Bros. for life support, and its most notable appearance in the next few years was alongside Pikmin as part of the minigames in the 2012 Wii U launch title Nintendo Land.
It was only a little while before Metroid truly joined Pikmin in its darkest hour. After years of waiting for a continuation to the 2D or 3D Metroid games, fans were met with a surprise Metroid announcement for the 3DS in 2016: the disappointing Federation Force. Even more so than Hey! Pikmin, this cooperative first-person shooter became infamous for being nothing like what fans wanted. It's hard to say if the Metroid Prime 4 teaser in its final moments justified its existence, with fans still feeling bitter about it years later. After that, the Metroid series went silent. Rumors flew wildly about the possibility of a Switch re-release of the Metroid Prime trilogy, but nothing ever manifested.
Suddenly, in Nintendo’s 2017 E3 Direct, Metroid Prime 4 got a teaser. And then, shocking the world, Metroid: Samus Returns was announced for the 3DS in the subsequent Nintendo Treehouse stream. Now, in a manner similar to Pikmin 3 Deluxe a few years later, a new Metroid game was being released to test the waters. The experiment was a success, and in a few short years, Metroid Prime 4 was deep in development following a public reboot and Metroid Dread was revealed a few months before its own release. It is a time of resurgence for Metroid, and with Pikmin following such a similar trajectory, there's a good chance Pikmin 4 could finally see the light of day in a couple of years.
Metroid Dread is slated to release on October 8 for Nintendo Switch.