Nintendo lifts the curtain on the Close to You short film... but only halfway

On Tuesday, instead of a new announcement or teaser for its titles at its usual 14:00 BST/15:00 CEST time, Nintendo simply released an animated short featuring a baby in a room where objects and toys seemed to move on their own. The animated short had some pretty high production values, which suggested that there was more to it than we thought. We speculated that it might be a clip from the upcoming The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, or even that it might be little invisible Pikmin roaming around the room. As it turns out, we weren't far off the mark.

Now Nintendo has republished the trailer, and this time we see that the culprits moving objects around the room and encouraging this little baby (Rosalina?) to take her first steps are none other than the little semi-vegetable, colourful creatures created by Shigeru Miyamoto. We're still not sure if what we're seeing is the expansion of Nintendo's Cinematic Universe, or if it's a preview of a new Pikmin game. We had to wait ten years between Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 4, and then Miyamoto-san already promised that for the next game we wouldn't have to wait that long.

Take a look at the tweet below. Will this be the first we see of Pikmin 5? And why are there humans in their world now? There are still a lot of questions to be answered...

Update: Nintendo reveals that the two Close to You short films are the first experiments of Nintendo Pictures

It seems that so much speculation and noise have made that even Nintendo itself has had to come out and explain. In the end, it was all an experiment. Specifically, the two Close to You shorts are the first short films from Nintendo Pictures, a branch of the company that "will continue to explore new creative possibilities through video content". Of course, if they wanted to find out if there's anticipation for anything new from Pikmin, the answer has been overwhelmingly positive. Don't you think?