Finally, the last one…
Nintendo held their “Direct” overnight, streaming the presentation worldwide as they’ve done the past few years instead of holding a physical briefing.
This year, with the Switch now officially released, there was no expectation they’d be talking about hardware and meant they could focus solely on the games.
Yoshi, a new simultaneous 2-player, platformer was one of the first titles announced. It has an aesthetic akin to Nintendo’s yarn titles but with more of a diorama feel. It has a very Little Big Planet feel to me, which is a fun game I loved.
During play the world can be “flipped” to help solve puzzles and progress through the world. Yoshi for Switch is due out next year.
Similarly a new Kirby title was announced for the Switch coming in 2018. From the trailer shown it appears to harken even further back to Nintendo’s platform roots. The main point of difference the game allowing up to 4 player co-op, something you can of course do with a single Switch – at a party, you know, with all your mates drinking beers on a roof-top. (Sorry I had to get one dig in at least)
A new expansion “pass” for Zelda: Breath of the Wild is coming. The pass will give you access to the three upcoming DLC packs “Master Trials,” “The Champions’ Ballad” and a third yet to be named. The first pack will be available June 30th and include: Trial of the Sword, Master Mode, Hero’s Path, Travel Medallion, Korok Mask and eight new armors.
It wasn’t all about the Switch. Nintendo continues to show some love to it’s “true”? portable platform the 3DS with announcements for a new Metroid title called “Samus Returns” as well as the short and sweetly named “Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions“.
Metroid: Samus Returns will be available September 15th with Mario and Luigi coming later in the year on October 17th.
Lets be honest though, we all wanted more details on the upcoming Super Mario Odyssey and thankfully Nintendo were up to the challenge. The new trailer shows Mario’s use of “Cappy” and how it can be thrown onto enemies and environmental NPCs (like human beings) to take control of them.
Vooks, the best resource for Nintendo info in Australia has a detailed write up of their hands on with Mario Odyssey that I encourage anyone after more details to take a look at. They will do it a far better justice than I ever could.
Also announced was Odyssey’s official release date, moved up significantly earlier than I ever expected to October 27th.
Finally Nintendo left us all with the bitter-sweet reveal that Metroid Prime 4 is in fact being developed. The reveal is nothing more than a teaser, with not so much as rendered cut-scene, but it will excite a lot of people that have been begging for this for years now.
With zero details, zero screenshots and zero footage this would appear to be a very long way off still. 2019+ ways off even, but then Nintendo often keep cards close to their chest and unlike Kojima’s Death Stranding may have something working behind the scenes they’re just not willing to talk about yet.
Time will tell.