'Pikmin 4' hits Switch on July 21st

After nearly a decade in development, Pikmin 4 is due to land on the Switch on July 21st, 2023. Nintendo shared a fresh gameplay trailer during today's Direct showcase, featuring a new Pikmin with ice abilities and a friendly dog who helps the little plant buddies on their cosmic adventures.

Apparently, Pikmin games just take a long time to develop, OK? Nintendo head Shigeru Miyamoto said in 2015 that Pikmin 4 was "very close to completion," but that clearly wasn't the case. It's now been 10 years since the release of Pikmin 3, which itself spent eight years in development. Of course, it ended up being an absolutely lovely experience on the Wii U.

The Wii U. Wow, it really has been a long time since the last Pikmin game came out. That could explain the length of Pikmin 4's production timeline, too, as it entered development at the end of the Wii U's short lifecycle, yet long before the Switch entered the market. If it's as cute as all the trailers make it look, we'll take it.