We are officially halfway through September and there’s still no sign of a Switch 2 or of the usual Nintendo Direct that typically airs around this time of year. Instead, we have an indie studio hyping up a Switch successor console on its Kickstarter page and fans buzzing about possible secret developer trips to Nintendo’s North America HQ. What does it all mean?
Pathea Games, the team behind My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock, just announced a Kickstarter for its next game in the farming sim RPG series, My Time at Evershine. But the most interesting thing about the announcement wasn’t the fact that the China-based studio is still using Kickstarter for their projects, or that the new game will feature town management in addition to building.
Instead, it was the platforms that the game is expected to come to. “Pathea is committed to launching My Time At Evershine on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and future Nintendo platforms yet to be announced,” the studio wrote in a press release, seemingly the first time someone has explicitly mentioned what could be a Switch 2 in marketing materials. And the Kickstarter itself is set to go live on September 24, which is in-and-around the last time Nintendo could sneak in a September Direct.
It could all be coincidence or just savvy marketing, but it comes a day after the CEO of Limited Run Games posted a photo of himself outside of Nintendo of America. “We had an awesome visit to Nintendo of America today! tweeted Joshua Fairhurst outside the headquarters. “I am grateful that we have such great partners at NoA.”
“So, not to be a conspiracy theorist, but a LOT of developers seemingly got invited to visit Nintendo yesterday. This is far from the only example,” tweeted gaming accessibility consultant Laura Kate Dale. “Seems a lot of developers got invited to NoA yesterday,” posted Did You Know Gaming contributor Liam Robertson. And all this is happening amid unsourced rumors about the Switch 2 beginning production in China and actually being called a Switch 2, while Taiwan newspaper United Daily News just added additional market speculation to the mix about a potential launch of the actual hardware before the end of the year.
It would be easy to dismiss the constellation of “trust me bro” rumors and educated guesses if not for the fact that Nintendo has never not held a showcase in September, and time is running out for it to keep that record unbroken. Then again, breaking the mold is kind of Nintendo’s whole thing. Hopefully we’ll find out soon enough just how drastically the Mario maker decides to zig instead of zag this time around. At least then fans will have something tangible to talk about.