Once again out of nowhere, Nintendo has announced an update for a multiple year old game that many people would have guessed was long since finished. As the trailer uploaded to Nintendo’s YouTube channel today confirms, Pikmin 4 will be receiving a free update in November that introduces a number of new features. While it’s unconfirmed if this will be a Switch 2 compatibility update, players will find that they now have difficulty options as well as a photo mode.
The impetus for this update seems to be compatibility with Pikmin Bloom, the mobile game that I bet a lot of you forgot existed. The update will add a new “Decor Pikmin” to each map in the game that can be transferred to Bloom once found. The description for the trailer states that some of these Pikmin will be entirely new, so if you want to complete your collection in Bloom, you’ll need to play this latest update.
The other two features are pretty easy to figure out. Photo mode, which is called “Field Camera” here, allows you to take photos of your Pikmin and change filters, etc. Pretty self-explanatory. The difficulty options, though, come in the form of “Relaxed Mode” and “Fierce Mode.” Relaxed slows the pace down a bit and prevents creatures from attacking you unless you attack first. Fierce mode, on the other hand, amps things up to provide more of a challenge for seasoned players. You can select which difficulty you want when starting a game or at any point from the menu.
Last, but not least, is that the Pikmin 4 demo available on the eShop will also receive this update to reflect the final product. There’s no specific date for when that will be, but I would imagine Nintendo isn’t going to promote something a month out when it’s simply a free update. We can only hope that Nintendo Switch 2 features are added, because Pikmin with mouse control would be great.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
