It Was Pikmin All Along, But We’re Still Not Sure Why

Yesterday, Nintendo did one of those quirky things the brand always does, releasing an animated short film titled “Close to You” that didn’t have an obvious connection to any of its existing IP. The short, which mainly focused on a baby and its pacifier, sparked all sorts of speculation online, ranging from a Super Mario Galaxy movie preview to Pikmin. Turns out the Pikmin fans were right, as it was Pikmin all along. Once again, Shigeru Miyamoto’s prized possessions are getting their own animated shorts, as they did in 2020.

At the time of writing, the second “Close to You” video is available only in the Nintendo Today! app and hasn’t been shared on Nintendo’s official social profiles, including YouTube. On mobile devices, the app doesn’t allow users to capture screenshots, so we used an emulator to grab the image shown above. Of course, Nintendo didn’t change how the video ended, meaning we still have no idea what this is. It isn’t an obvious announcement of another Pikmin title, nor is it clear whether Pikmin 4 is getting a Switch 2 edition.

But again, this isn’t the first time Nintendo has done animated shorts around Pikmin, and it definitely won’t be the last. This time around, though, it was pretty clever to release one version of the video with invisible Pikmin, since it definitely got people talking. We’ll be sure to update this post with the second video when Nintendo shares it outside of the Nintendo Today! app.