Nintendo just released one of my favorite games in Mario Maker 2 and has a bunch of good stuff coming up soon, but... I still like to speculate about the future. First, let's go back to 2017 and look at the releases (non-ports) then.
Breath of the Wild: Zelda team+Monolith Soft
Arms: Mario Kart team
Splatoon 2: Splatoon/Animal Crossing team? (unclear how much these games have in common in terms of staff outside of the leads)
Samus Returns: Mercury Steam
Mario Odyssey: Mario team
Xenoblade 2: Smallish portion of Monolith Soft
Out of these 6 developers, we're pretty sure that the Zelda team of EPD+Monolith Soft are making BotW2 which could release late 2020 (according to Zell) or might be 2021 based on them giving no release date. Not sure if Splatoon 3 will be next year if a lot of the staff is focused on Animal Crossing but I'm not clear on that. The Mario Odyssey team may have had some programmers and artists working on Mario Maker 2 if they merged with the 2D Mario team, but they may have enough staff to do a sequel to Mario Odyssey in 2020. A Spanish poster that leaked Samus Returns right away says Mercury Steam is making a new Metroid game (or said that back in early 2018, things may have changed since) though there are conflicting rumors if this is a new game or a remake of Super or Fusion. We're not sure what the Mario Kart people are doing but maybe they could lend their staff to Pikmin 4 or something as EPD's structure is somewhat complicated. What the smaller group of Monolith Soft is doing is pretty unclear right now. People had assumed that they were making a new IP but it's possible that could have just been hiring for BotW2. Xenoblade 2 did well but BotW did super well so they may be focusing all their staff on that. Or they could just be making another Xenoblade game since 2 did well.
Possibilities from the 2017 list and my completely random guesses on their likelihood of being 2020 which you should definitely disagree with and explain why:
BotW2: 50/50, maybe.
Something from the Mario Kart people: IDK
Animal Crossing: 100%
2D Metroid Switch from Mercury Steam: Maybe like 60/40?
Mario Odyssey 2: 60/40?
Xenoblade 3 or a new IP from Monolith Soft: 60/40
Now let's go to 2018 and look at this for a bit:
Kirby Star Allies: HAL
Super Mario Party: ND Cube
Mario Tennis Aces: Camelot
Will ignore Pokemon as I'll get to that in a minute. The Smash people are still making DLC and won't have a new game ready for 2020 pretty obviously, so let's look at these three. Kirby is generally a yearly series and Kirby Star Allies released very early in 2018. If HAL takes around two years to make a sequel, then they could have one out by Spring 2020. On the other hand, Kirby Star Allies wasn't exactly finished by March 2018 and got a lot of DLC support that could have stopped them from starting on a sequel right away. HAL could also take longer with this Kirby to try to be more ambitious or to make sure the game releases full of content on day 1 this time. I feel like ND Cube will release Super Mario Party 2 next year as the first game did amazing sales-wise. They were hiring for a new IP so maybe they'll release that instead, but feel confident they'll release something. Camelot seems like a tiny developer so I'm pretty doubtful we'll get a game from them in 2020.
Another Kirby game: 80/20
Super Mario Party 2 or a new ND Cube IP: 90/10
There could be some WiiU ports (with 3D World being the most obvious and Pikmin 3 being the most rumored) but they release this kind of randomly and it's hard to predict.
Now let's go over some other possibilities:
Pokemon Sword/Shield Third version(s): Seems pretty likely as every game other than X and Y has gotten one and they actually have a selling point for this third version if they include all the Pokemon. 85/15.
Paper Mario 6: Color Splash was released in late 2016 and Intelligent Systems would have had several years if they wanted to make a sequel. On the other hand, IS may have focused their staff on Three Houses and Three Houses saw delays of nearly a full year so it's unclear if they had the staff to spare for this. Even if they did, IS may want to make something else as Paper Mario has had an up and down reception over the last 15 years. 20/80. But maybe they'll release something else in 2020.
Pikmin 4: I assume this game is in development but I don't know how many people are working on as the series has not done well in the first three games. So... Who knows if it will be 2020. 40/60
Retro's game(s) between Tropical Freeze and Prime 4: The ship has mostly sailed on this one as Retro has been aggressively hiring for Prime 4 for the last six months, but maybe there's some chance? Throwing away five years, losing your top staff, and getting Prime 4 seems odd on the surface... But also the most likely situation. 10/90.
Prime 4: They just started on this game. 2/98.
Bayonetta 3: The creative director leaving suggests things are not going well but they can probably still get it out there I think. 80/20.
Prime Trilogy: I'm sure this is done but I have no idea when it will release. IDK/100 - IDK.
So, my predictions for next year:
Q1: Animal Crossing New Horizons, 3D World port.
Q2: Pikmin 3 port.
Q3: New main Kirby game, Bayonetta 3, New major IP from EPD or Monolith Soft or IS, Super Metroid reimagining
Q4: Either Mario Odyssey 2 or BotW2 but not both, Pokemon GunSword and Pokemon GunShield, Super Mario Party 2.
Lot of this will likely be wrong but just wanted to think about this this morning for fun.
Breath of the Wild: Zelda team+Monolith Soft
Arms: Mario Kart team
Splatoon 2: Splatoon/Animal Crossing team? (unclear how much these games have in common in terms of staff outside of the leads)
Samus Returns: Mercury Steam
Mario Odyssey: Mario team
Xenoblade 2: Smallish portion of Monolith Soft
Out of these 6 developers, we're pretty sure that the Zelda team of EPD+Monolith Soft are making BotW2 which could release late 2020 (according to Zell) or might be 2021 based on them giving no release date. Not sure if Splatoon 3 will be next year if a lot of the staff is focused on Animal Crossing but I'm not clear on that. The Mario Odyssey team may have had some programmers and artists working on Mario Maker 2 if they merged with the 2D Mario team, but they may have enough staff to do a sequel to Mario Odyssey in 2020. A Spanish poster that leaked Samus Returns right away says Mercury Steam is making a new Metroid game (or said that back in early 2018, things may have changed since) though there are conflicting rumors if this is a new game or a remake of Super or Fusion. We're not sure what the Mario Kart people are doing but maybe they could lend their staff to Pikmin 4 or something as EPD's structure is somewhat complicated. What the smaller group of Monolith Soft is doing is pretty unclear right now. People had assumed that they were making a new IP but it's possible that could have just been hiring for BotW2. Xenoblade 2 did well but BotW did super well so they may be focusing all their staff on that. Or they could just be making another Xenoblade game since 2 did well.
Possibilities from the 2017 list and my completely random guesses on their likelihood of being 2020 which you should definitely disagree with and explain why:
BotW2: 50/50, maybe.
Something from the Mario Kart people: IDK
Animal Crossing: 100%
2D Metroid Switch from Mercury Steam: Maybe like 60/40?
Mario Odyssey 2: 60/40?
Xenoblade 3 or a new IP from Monolith Soft: 60/40
Now let's go to 2018 and look at this for a bit:
Kirby Star Allies: HAL
Super Mario Party: ND Cube
Mario Tennis Aces: Camelot
Will ignore Pokemon as I'll get to that in a minute. The Smash people are still making DLC and won't have a new game ready for 2020 pretty obviously, so let's look at these three. Kirby is generally a yearly series and Kirby Star Allies released very early in 2018. If HAL takes around two years to make a sequel, then they could have one out by Spring 2020. On the other hand, Kirby Star Allies wasn't exactly finished by March 2018 and got a lot of DLC support that could have stopped them from starting on a sequel right away. HAL could also take longer with this Kirby to try to be more ambitious or to make sure the game releases full of content on day 1 this time. I feel like ND Cube will release Super Mario Party 2 next year as the first game did amazing sales-wise. They were hiring for a new IP so maybe they'll release that instead, but feel confident they'll release something. Camelot seems like a tiny developer so I'm pretty doubtful we'll get a game from them in 2020.
Another Kirby game: 80/20
Super Mario Party 2 or a new ND Cube IP: 90/10
There could be some WiiU ports (with 3D World being the most obvious and Pikmin 3 being the most rumored) but they release this kind of randomly and it's hard to predict.
Now let's go over some other possibilities:
Pokemon Sword/Shield Third version(s): Seems pretty likely as every game other than X and Y has gotten one and they actually have a selling point for this third version if they include all the Pokemon. 85/15.
Paper Mario 6: Color Splash was released in late 2016 and Intelligent Systems would have had several years if they wanted to make a sequel. On the other hand, IS may have focused their staff on Three Houses and Three Houses saw delays of nearly a full year so it's unclear if they had the staff to spare for this. Even if they did, IS may want to make something else as Paper Mario has had an up and down reception over the last 15 years. 20/80. But maybe they'll release something else in 2020.
Pikmin 4: I assume this game is in development but I don't know how many people are working on as the series has not done well in the first three games. So... Who knows if it will be 2020. 40/60
Retro's game(s) between Tropical Freeze and Prime 4: The ship has mostly sailed on this one as Retro has been aggressively hiring for Prime 4 for the last six months, but maybe there's some chance? Throwing away five years, losing your top staff, and getting Prime 4 seems odd on the surface... But also the most likely situation. 10/90.
Prime 4: They just started on this game. 2/98.
Bayonetta 3: The creative director leaving suggests things are not going well but they can probably still get it out there I think. 80/20.
Prime Trilogy: I'm sure this is done but I have no idea when it will release. IDK/100 - IDK.
So, my predictions for next year:
Q1: Animal Crossing New Horizons, 3D World port.
Q2: Pikmin 3 port.
Q3: New main Kirby game, Bayonetta 3, New major IP from EPD or Monolith Soft or IS, Super Metroid reimagining
Q4: Either Mario Odyssey 2 or BotW2 but not both, Pokemon GunSword and Pokemon GunShield, Super Mario Party 2.
Lot of this will likely be wrong but just wanted to think about this this morning for fun.
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