Recently, Nintendo posted a very… interesting video on their Japanese and American channels. Titled ‘Close to You’, it featured scenes of a baby trying to retrieve its dummy (pacifier) back from an invisible force that was seemingly taking it away, with various comedic mishaps along the way.
It was an intriguing choice of video, and one which brought forth a lot of questions from die-hard fans.
Was the Nintendo channel hacked and replaced with a generic one? Is this some sort of new project from Nintendo Pictures, the movie studio the company set up a few months ago? Is this some sort of teaser for an upcoming Nintendo game or series?
All these questions and more went viral online, with people wondering what on Earth was going through the company’s minds with this upload.
Now though, it seems we have an answer. An answer involving Pikmin.
Indeed, as shown in a new version of the video on the Nintendo Today app, the video was indeed Pikmin themed all along, with invisible Pikmin being responsible for the pacifier getting moved around the room. Apparently, Pikmin are entirely invisible to humans, so the point of the original video was to show what a human might see in a setting with them around, as opposed to someone playing the game.
But that raises another question here. If the video is indeed Pikmin themed, is it a hint at some future project? Are Nintendo preparing to announce a new game or movie based on the franchise?
Because on the one hand, it would make sense. The Switch 2 is significantly more powerful than the Switch 1 is, so a new Pikmin game for that would look and run far better than any of the previous titles ever could.
Add this to a potential gimmick/change that could justify a new game (what if it turns out that humans do still live on PNF-404 and they just couldn’t see the goings on in the earlier games?), and well, there’s definitely a reason for such a game or adaptation. So, it could work.
At the same time though, Pikmin 3 only released in 2023, and previous Pikmin games had extremely spread-out releases. Hence if a new game is in development at the moment, it seems like it’d be a good 2-3 years away minimum. A teaser or announcement may not make sense at this time because of that.
Regardless, it’s a cute animation nonetheless, and one that shows what Nintendo are capable of when it comes to modern CGI. Here’s hoping its style and themes are used for an actual Pikmin game or adaptation in future, and that it’s more than just a random one-off on their YouTube channel.
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