With Pikmin 4 around the corner, you may be looking for a way to experience the Pikmin franchise and explore alongside Olimar and friends, and luckily there are numerous Pikmin games you’ll be able to adventure through before the release of the newest installment. However, game releases aren’t always chronological, so it’s best to know which order you should play the games to make the most of the experience. So, If you’re looking to shrink down and make the most of the Pikmin franchise before picking up the newest installment, read on to find out how you can play through the franchise in order.
Is There an Order to Pikmin Games?
If you’re looking through Pikmin, the order is pretty simple already, and the games can be played in order of release. So, it’s best to begin at the beginning with the original game Pikmin on either GameCube or Nintendo Wii, which will explore Olimar’s survival after a crashlanding in a new environment that an unusual species of plant inhabits. It sets the scene for the entire franchise, so even if you have no idea what it is or how it came about, you’re guaranteed to develop a good understanding by starting here.
Following on, Pikmin 2, which is also available on Gamecube and Wii, directly follows where the first game leads off but adds a new character — Louie — which the player can swap to rather than playing solely as Olimar. This helps you to explore new abilities and share tasks and puzzles while still getting a sense of the traditional experience from the first game. You’ll experience the same types of Pikmin species rather than being bombarded with new types to utilize, and it’s just another wholesome slice of the franchise.
This leads you to Pikmin 3, which takes the captain lineup a step further and lets you switch between three captains rather than being limited to just Olimar, but also adds two new species to harness the abilities of. Typically, it follows the same formula as the first two games but shakes things up by adding a new captain to the mix.
But in regards to both Hey! Pikmin and Pikmin Bloom are a bit of a blurred line in the franchise as they aren’t essential to play to really get to grips with what Pikmin has to offer, but if you’ve grown particularly fond of the plant pals, then they’re a decent extra dose of content without really affecting the storyline. So we’d consider them an optional addition to the existing timeline, but it’s essential to note that they don’t play into the central storyline. That said, Hey! Pikmin is described as a direct sequel to Pikmin 3, but the audience reception sees it as a spin-off since it strays from the traditional Pikmin formula.
But to make matters simpler, the following list states the order you should aim to play Pikmin games, including Bloom, Hey! Pikmin, and 4, alongside which platforms they are available on.
- Pikmin – Gamecube and Wii
- Pikmin 2 – Gamecube and Wii
- Pikmin 3 – Wii U and Nintendo Switch
- Hey! Pikmin – 3DS
- Pikmin Bloom – Mobile Devices
- Pikmin 4 – Nintendo Switch
Of course, the launch of Pikmin 4 will fall neatly at the end of the list, picking up from the Pikmin franchise almost ten years on from the release of 3, but it’s impossible to say what the story would contain since minimal information about the game has been released.
Pikmin 4 will launch on Nintendo Switch in July, 2023.
