Last year, after seven years of fuzzy, half-baked mentions of the game in intervies and sundry, we finally got the for realsies announcement of Pikmin 4. However, thus far we've only had the most teasing glimpse of what the little plant friends' new game would look like...until now.
Today's Nintendo Direct included our first gameplay trailer of Pikmin 4, featuring a new player character, a new Ice-type Pikmin, and a strong dog friend named Oatchi who can help you and your Pikmin crush walls, pull heavy objects, and traverse water. We also got a release date: Pikmin 4 is coming on July 21, 2023.
Pikmin 4 has reportedly been in the works for years now, with Shigeru Miyamoto saying way back in 2015 that it was "very close to completion" and rumors surfacing again in 2016 and 2017 that work was still going on. Then it was radio silence until last fall, when we got an official announcement at a Direct. Our review of its freshly Switch-ported predecessor said that Pikmin 3 Deluxe made "an already excellent game even better", making it worth picking up before Pikmin 4 if you missed the Wii U rendition.
For more from today's Nintendo Direct, check out our roundup of everything announced.
Bo Moore is IGN's Executive Tech Editor. You can find him on Twitter @usebomswisely.