Nintendo’s New Animated Short Has Fans Baffled Whether It’s a Super Mario Galaxy Movie Teaser — Or a Hint at Pikmin 5

Without any explanation at all from Nintendo itself, this is clearly something fans are being left to ponder about by themselves — though IGN has contacted Nintendo for more.

Certainly, the pacifier’s movements really do look like they could be made by a band of Pikmin carrying the item aloft, and several Pikmin games have indeed tasked players with squirreling away household items. And indeed, Pikmin 4 even tasked players with venturing inside a human house for the first time.

The Pikmin series has always been set on Earth, with Pikmin themselves suggested as always just being out of sight. Is this Nintendo making it clear that, to human eyes, Pikmin are indeed invisible?

Leaving aside the Pikmin music and other clues, other fans have suggested the child here could be Rosalina, whose parentage — alongside that of Princess Peach’s own — looks set to finally be explained in next year’s big-screen Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Is this a scene from that film? We’re not sure — the animation style doesn’t look quite the same as Illumination’s own — but it’s also odd to see Nintendo launching its own, unconnected animated short just six months out from its next big animated movie.

Whatever this is, we’ll update with more when we have it.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social