In spite of the fact that Metroid Prime 4, one of Nintendo’s biggest and most anticipated upcoming games, was recently delayed (and by all accounts, probably won’t be heard of again for a while yet), 2019 is still looking like a great year for the Nintendo Switch in terms of the exclusive releases it has lined up. Nintendo alone has plenty of stuff lined up- Yoshi’s Crafted World, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Animal Crossing, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, Luigi’s Mansion 3, and, of course, Pokemon are just a few of the major games due out on the Switch in 2019 itself.
But it looks like Nintendo has even more stuff planned for the year that they haven’t yet spoken about. As Wall Street Journal writer Takashi Mochizuki reported on Twitter, during their financial results briefing for the third quarter of the ongoing financial year, Nintendo confirmed that they are preparing at least one unannounced game for launch on the Switch before FY 2019 is out (so by April 2020), and that it is a game that “fans would be delighted to know [about].”
That could be any number of things, but a few names do immediately come to mind. The first is Retro’s long-rumoured Star Fox Grand Prix. Retro is going to be focusing on Metroid Prime 4 for a while now, which means that either development on the Star Fox game is nearing completion, or it’s been put on the back burner for a while- if it’s the former, the game may very well be out within the next year or so.
Another possibility is a 2D Zelda title. It’s been plenty of time since the last 2D Zelda game, A Link Between Worlds, came out, while there have also been reports suggesting that a new Zelda title might be out sooner than we think. Then there’s Pikmin 4, which seemed to be nearing completion long time ago, but was, bafflingly enough, held back from launch.
My personal hope is that it’s Mario Maker for the Switch, though. It’s a travesty that that hasn’t already come out. Make it happen, Nintendo.