@Pyoro_ND – a leaker who has started becoming prominent only recently, thanks to accurate leaks for a number of titles – has been teasing out quite a few of those aforementioned rumours, having recently claimed that a new mainline 2D Mario game will be announced at the Direct. In addition to that, the leaker has seemingly dropped hints for a couple more announcements.

Courtesy of a tweet that contains a Detective Pikachu GIF, @Pyoro_ND has sparked speculation that Detective Pikachu 2 might finally get its official reveal. The game was confirmed to be in development as far back as 2019, and though there have been next to no updates on it since then, reports last year suggested that the game was “nearing release”.

Meanwhile, the leaker has dropped a separate tweet in another tweet, simply saying, “Everybody 1-2-Pikmin!” Though it might be referring to the recently-announced Everybody 1-2-Switch! and the upcoming Pikmin 4 (the latter of which is confirmed to be making an appearance at the Direct, with the former also likely to do so), it might instead be teasing a remastered launch for Pikmin 1 and 2. Pikmin 3 Deluxe is, of course, already available on the Switch.

Of course, it’s best to take this with a grain of salt for now, as is the case with any leak, especially ones that are this vague, though with the Direct coming up in just a few hours, at least we won’t be in the dark for too long.

There’s also a chance that the recently-announced Persona 3 Reload also gets confirmed for the Nintendo Switch, given the fact that Switch listings for the RPG remake have been spotted on retailer websites a few times now.

Good morning. pic.twitter.com/gAWq0zkpbI

— Pyoro (@Pyoro_X) June 20, 2023

Everybody 1-2-Pikmin!

— Pyoro (@Pyoro_X) June 20, 2023

As per the LinkedIn page of Jonathan Murphy, who’s a senior game programmer at Creatures Inc, the Detective Pikachu sequel is “nearing release” (screencap below). The fact that he explicitly calls it Detective Pikachu 2 is also notable, because of course, that this will be a full-fledged sequel to the 3DS original was never actually officially confirmed by The Pokemon Company or Nintendo.

As for when the game will actually release, or when it will be formally unveiled, that remains to be seen. Earlier this year, job listings did indicate that development on the project was very much still ongoing, so at the very least, it’s good to get continued reassurances that it hasn’t been completely forgotten about.

It seems like it is. As spotted and translated by VGC, on a recruitment page on the website of the game’s developer Creatures Inc., a programmer referred to simply as “KT” mentions that he is working on “the sequel to Detective Pikachu“, and that his work involves “programming the drawing area, while also creating a system in the Environment Development Office that will serve as the foundation for future game production in general.”

Back when Detective Pikachu 2 – or whatever it ends up being called – was first announced, it was confirmed that it would conclude the story of the first game, which ended on a cliffhanger- though there isn’t much else that’s known about the game yet. Hopefully we’ll begin hearing more about it in an official capacity sooner rather than later, because given the current situation, you wouldn’t be blamed for having forgotten that this was even a thing.

Later this year, we see the very first Hollywood take on the Pokemon universe launch when Detective Pikachu, based on the unlikely Nintendo 3DS video game of the same name, releases. However, it seems like the movie makers are pretty confident in how the movie will go for them, because it sounds like they are already working on a follow up.

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the sequel is being written by Orien Uziel, who is best known for the fantastic 22 Jump Street, and most recently, for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie (which, unlike Detective Pikachu, does not look like it will turn out all that well at all).

Sequels being announced before a movie is even out are a big thing for franchise-minded Hollywood—the Fantastic Four reboot had a sequel announced before it was even out, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had a bevy of follow-ups and spin-offs planned. The financial flopping of both movies led to those plans being scarpered. All of which is to say, a sequel here isn’t given, if Detective Pikachu ends up disappointing. Thankfully, what we have seen of it looks great enough.