Yesterday, Nintendo released an animated short called “Close to You” on its YouTube and social media channels. The video was posted with no context, no description, and even its comments were turned off, so no one could speculate about its meaning in the comments. Today, Nintendo uploaded an updated version of the short on the Nintendo Today app that sheds some light on the mystery by revealing Pikmin, the titular little plant-like creatures from Nintendo’s strategy game series, were behind the original video’s shenanigans all along.
Some fans clocked this yesterday, as the video had some Pikmin musical motifs in its score, and it looked like one of these plant guys was carrying items in the background of one shot. But there was also a fair bit of speculation that it could have been a clip from the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy Movie, depicting what could have been a baby Rosalina taking her first steps. But now we know for sure, because the updated video shows all the weird floating items in the baby’s room were actually being moved by Pikmin the whole time. The video hasn’t been uploaded outside of the Nintendo Today app at the moment, but the updated version is almost exactly the same, but it’s like someone flipped a switch and enabled a whole other layer in the rendering process, showing dozens of Pikmin crawling around the baby’s room. We’ll update this story when the video is uploaded on YouTube or any platform we can actually embed. Update: Here ya go:
The question remains, however: what is this teasing? Is it a new Pikmin game? A movie? The return of the Pikmin short movies? Maybe we’ll find out more tomorrow if a third version drops? Or maybe it’s just a fun one-off thing some animators wanted to put together? Whatever the case, it’s a cute short. I hope to be able to watch it on something other than my phone before the day’s end.
