Among other information, a Japanese download card reveals Pikmin 4 will have multiplayer in which player 2 provides covering fire.
Download cards for the upcoming Nintendo Switch title Pikmin 4 have appeared in the wild in Japan, and they reveal a few interesting details about the game.
As spotted by Tokyo Game Life on Twitter, the packaging for the cards shows new screenshots of the game, including one that seems to show the inside of a house.
Pikmin 4 download cards are now in Japan! Are these new screenshots? I don’t recognize them… 🤔 pic.twitter.com/qGf9FPuvTa
— Tokyo Game Life 🔜 TGS 2023 (@TokyoGameLife) June 20, 2023
Pikmin 4 gives you the option to create your own explorer, and the screenshot shows an explorer riding through a house on the back of Oatchi, the space dog that’s a new addition for this fourth game. As previously confirmed, Oatchi will be able to carry Pikmin and smash through obstacles.
Previous Pikmin games have always been set outside, so it’s intriguing to see a shot of the inside of a house. However, it’s not clear whether this is part of an actual level, or simply a cut scene.
Probably the most interesting detail is in the bottom right, which translates as: ‘With 2 players, you can easily provide covering fire.’ It seems that there is some kind of option for a second player to join and use their controller to fire something, possibly Pikmin, or possibly something else. It could be similar to the two-player mode in Super Mario Galaxy, where player 1 controlled Mario, while player 2 used the Wii remote to shoot Star Bits at enemies.
There’s also a shot of some of the treasures you can find in the game, which include paper cranes, a fidget spinner, a cup and ball toy (kendama in Japanese) and a beach ball.
Another screen seems to show a split-screen mode: both Pikmin 2 and Pikmin 3 featured a separate split-screen multiplayer mode, but Pikmin 3 Deluxe also added a coop story mode. It’s still not clear whether the coop story mode will return for Pikmin 4, but we at least know we’ll be getting multiplayer of some sort.
Pikmin 4 is set for release on 21st July on Nintendo Switch.
Read more: Nintendo will be attending Gamescom 2023
