Buckle up and grab your red hat! No, the OTHER red hat.
It’s happened: Nintendo has finally announced its next Nintendo Direct. While it hasn’t had one in June for a couple of years, and it missed the general Not-E3 2023 timing, it’s still Summer and we welcome new gaming news. The Direct will take place on Wednesday, June 21 at 7AM PT/10AM ET and feature about 40 minutes of game info. You can watch it below.
We really only know what’s happening through July for the console, so the second half of the year really is a big blank. It looks like we’ll find out what will be filling that schedule, and what the company will be showing off at gamescom and Nintendo Live in Seattle. Now, as is the typical happenstance, the rumor mill is CHURNING, and PEOPLE ARE SAYING several things related to what might pop up. Here’s what we’ve gathered thus far — let us know your own predictions in the comments below or on Twitter!
What we’ll likely see:
- Pikmin 4 blowout: Nintendo notes it themselves in the Direct announcement that Pikmin 4 will feature in the stream, but game download cards are in the wild in Japan and show off gameplay INSIDE OF HOUSES, alongside splitscreen play. [SOURCE]
- Splatoon 3 DLC: The DLC is on the way, and with the game having been out for nearly a year now it’s time to show it off. Nintendo itself announced it back in February, so it should be here soon.
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course DLC: The remaining two booster course packs are still on the way, and since both are due by the end of the year, that leaves about 6 months to knock them out. It’s likely we’ll see one of them tomorrow.
Rumors:
- Persona 3 Reload: The remake of Persona 3 was first leaked on Xbox Game Pass, and then box art appeared online — all before it was formally announced at Xbox’s Showcase last week. The game (and P5Tactica) were revealed to be multiplatform, with P3Reload noticeably absent from the Switch. That could pop up here.
- 2D Super Mario game: A brand new 2D Super Mario game is rumored to be the big holiday game [SOURCE]
- SNES Remakes: A remake is in the works for a Super NES game. There have been rumors of Super Metroid being remade, but also Earthbound and Sumer Mario RPG. [SOURCE]
- Rhythm Heaven: A new RH game is rumored to be in the works [SOURCE]
- Dragon Quest Monsters: A new game is in the works, so this might be the place that we first see it (perhaps in the Japanese stream) [SOURCE]
- Dragon Quest XII/Dragon Quest III: Speaking o Dr5agon Quest, there are TWO BIG DQ games in the works and we haven’t heard a peep in a couple of years…
- Wario World game: Rumored for a while… Will it make an appearance? [SOURCE]
- Fire Emblem Remake: This may be the SNES remake, as it’s supposedly been done for a while [SOURCE]