Predicting what might be revealed, announced, or detailed during Nintendo’s upcoming Direct presentation on September 4.
Nintendo just announced that their next Nintendo Direct presentation will take place tomorrow, Sept. 4. Of course, this means it’s time to go into speculation mode to try to figure out what exactly will be discussed during the show.
Last Call for September Games
Nintendo has quite a lot of games coming to the Switch this month, so we’ll likely get some last bits of new information about a number of these before they release in a few weeks.
Daemon X Machina is a mech game slated for Sept.13. As one of the big Switch-exclusive games coming out this half of the year, we’ll probably hear at least something about it.
An even bigger Switch exclusive coming out soon is the Link’s Awakening remake, coming Sept. 20, so expect some new details on that as well.
Aside from those two, we’ve also got Untitled Goose Game coming on Sept. 20, Dragon Quest XI S coming on Sept. 27, and several ports, including Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and Ori and the Blind Forest. These probably won’t all be discussed during the Direct, but it’s probably safe to assume that Nintendo will want to take the opportunity to give some last details to some of them.
Q4 Games
Nintendo’s announcement today stated that the Nintendo Direct will be “focused on 2019 Nintendo Switch games,” so it’s safe to assume that the brunt of the presentation will be spent discussing games coming out from Oct. through Dec. this year. In particular, the announcement already confirmed that we will be hearing news about Luigi’s Mansion 3, coming Oct. 31, and Pokémon Sword and Shield, both coming Nov. 15.
Nintendo was also hyping up The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition being ported to the Switch at PAX West this past weekend, so that will likely be mentioned as well, even if it’s just a brief reminder that it’s coming on Oct. 15.
We should also probably expect some more news on Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, coming Nov. 5, and potentially some big cross-platform games like DOOM Eternal, coming Nov. 22.
DLC
Specifically, we fully expect to get some news on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s Fighters Pass. Banjo & Kazooie are slated for release sometime this fall. A late September/early October release looks likely for them if Nintendo wants to fit in one last DLC fighter before the end of the year.
If a recent potential leak is correct, the beloved bear and bird may be coming even sooner than that. Regardless, we’ll likely receive some tighter release window, or possibly even a release date, for Banjo & Kazooie coming to Smash.
What’s even more likely, however, is the announcement of the next Smash DLC character. Considering for the past few years now, the last non-game-specific Nintendo Direct of the year has been in Sept.; tomorrow’s presentation will likely be last one of 2019. Given that, it’s almost inevitable that Nintendo will want to take the opportunity to announce the next DLC fighter, especially if a recent leak is correct and that information is getting out anyway. Plus, if Nintendo is keeping their schedule of having all DLC fighters out by Feb. of 2020, then releasing the fourth one in Dec. of this year seems likely. What better time to reveal it than in potentially the last Direct of the year?
New Announcements
Since we’re heading into the end of the year, it’s unlikely that there will be a whole lot of announcements for new games that have yet to be announced that will be coming out this year. However, it wouldn’t be a Nintendo Direct without some completely out-of-left-field announcement, so even though this upcoming Direct may be focusing on 2019 games, there will likely be at least one or two announcements for games coming in 2020 or later.
Bayonetta 3 is expected for 2020 (though no official release date has been revealed), so we may hear something about that highly-anticipated game.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that development on Metroid Prime 4 had been restarted, so it’s probably best to not get our hopes up for any reveals on that. And since the Breath of the Wild sequel was just announced during the last Direct, we probably won’t be getting much more information on that for a while. However, Nintendo probably has some other things waiting in the wings to surprise us all with.
Will Pikmin 4 finally be revealed? What about a new F-Zero or Star Fox game? Nintendo has been slowing down on the Switch ports of Wii U games recently, but there are still several that could potentially benefit by coming to a more popular console. Plus, there’s always the possibility of more ports of older games from other consoles.
A new Golden Sun game would be cool. I am just saying.
