Rockstar's got a lot of guts to release GTA VI a week after Pikmin 4: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy.
Turns out I was right to be suspicious of the surprise Switch 2 update that Pikmin 3 Deluxe got at the start of the month, as Nintendo announced that Pikmin 4 would be getting a Switch 2 Edition in last week's Nintendo Direct!
It includes a couple of key features, including the ability to use voice commands to guide your dependable pup Oatchi with the system's microphone. There are a total of 9 different commands, including 'Rush' to have him rush forwards, 'Go to work' to have him collect treasure, and 'Good pup' for when you want to praise him for a job well done.
Between this and the ability to hum ocarina songs in the Ocarina of Time remake, they've been coming up with some really cool uses for that microphone. I must say, the Switch 2's microphone is one of the features that impressed me most when going through Welcome Tour at the system's launch last year, what with how cleanly it picks up your voice and how well the noise cancelling works, so it's really cool to see some neat use cases for it emerging in these games. I'll definitely be making use of the voice commands when I eventually get around to a full playthrough of Pikmin 4.
The big draw of this Switch 2 Edition, however, is the titular Dandori Academy. This mode features a series of challenges that expand on the Dandori Challenges from the base game with the aim of refining your Pikmin skills. The structure of this mode is fairly interesting, allowing you to train across stages of varying difficulties, before taking part in an exam at the end of the week. The exams are only available on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and can only be tackled once, encouraging you to practice and shore up your skills before taking them on. You'll be graded on your performance, and can compare your scores with your friends and other players globally.
It's almost like a mini-live service kinda thing, with stages and exams rotating weekly. A total of 72 Dandori Academy stages have been promised to release over time, so it seems like there will be a decent amount of content to dive into over a period of time. Some of the stages look pretty interesting, too. There's one that's comically littered with buttons, and another that looks to be inspired by the Pikmin Bloom mobile app.
Strangely, there doesn't seem to be support for mouse controls, which seems like a massive missed opportunity, and is admittedly a pretty disappointing omission. Perhaps they're just saving that feature for Pikmin 5?
Regardless, there's a couple additional features that are pretty par for the course with Switch 2 upgrades, with GameShare support for Dandori Battles, and a sharper resolution in both docked and handheld mode.
Pikmin 4: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy launches on November 12th, 2026 for $69.99 with a $9.99 upgrade pack for existing owners of Pikmin 4. That's one week after the Ocarina of Time remake, and one week before Grand Theft Auto VI. I know it's a smaller piece of content for a three year old game, but that release date really goes to show how unthreatened Nintendo is by GTA VI compared to everyone else in the industry, who are basically all trampling over each other to vacate the month of November to escape the GTA VI shaped meteor landing on the 19th. Not Nintendo, though, who's releasing TWO GAMES in that month.
I just think that's funny.
