Pikmin 4 Is the Closest Nintendo Has Come to Horror

It’s taken it over 40 years, but Nintendo has finally embraced horror, unofficially at least. Super Mario Odyssey’s mind-controlling cap was a little sinister, but the leaf-headed creatures in Pikmin 4 are on a whole different level. And having witnessed what these tiny abominations are capable of, I’ll never sleep soundly again.

Unlike long-time Pikmin worshippers, I hadn’t been indoctrinated into accepting their wacky antics. I’d seen clips of previous entries, watching them run around at the behest of whomever they’d fleetingly deigned to obey. But Pikmin 4 was the first Pikmin game I’d actually played, and I was unprepared for the nightmare fuel that was mainlined into me.

The tutorial section, which saw me playing as Captain Olimar, lured me into a false sense of security. I had to fight a giant, spiny testicle, which, on reflection, should have been a red flag. But the horror didn’t kick in until I watched my Pikmin descend en masse on a particularly formidable, flame-breathing foe.

I can’t remember whether I’d commanded them to attack or if they’d just waded in on their own. But a flurry of punches later, they were carrying its corpse back to the Onion, their mobile hive. At least — I choose to believe it was a corpse, since the game shows enemies’ spirits exiting their body.

Though, after the fact, I’ve started to wonder — what if? What if they were merely unconscious and were woken by row upon row of hidden teeth, gnawing at their battered and bruised flesh? Maybe that’s my imagination running away with me, but what happened next is indisputable.

Moments after the creature disappeared into the Onion, it spat out several new Pikmin. I’ll let you mull over the implications for a moment. Go on, I’ll wait.

Either these diminutive creatures feed the flesh of these beasts to their young, using them as Alien-style incubators, or, in a move that would make System Shock 2’s The Many glow with pride, mold the biomass into new Pikmin. Neither explanation is particularly family-friendly, even if the flesh-rending takes place out of sight.

It also got me thinking: What if the reason Pikmin 4 wildlife is so aggressive is that, with Pikmin roaming free, they have to be? What if that fire-belching “monster” had four of its offspring whisked away, never to be seen again?

It probably didn’t help that, a day or two earlier, I’d read this TheGamer article where author Jade King calculated how many Pikmin it’d take to transport a human corpse. The image lurking at the back of my mind, however, was a scene from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Only instead of ants descending on an ill-fated Russian soldier, I imagined an army of Pikmin, squeaking in delight as they manhandled their ill-fated catch.

Did this train of thought stop me from playing Pikmin 4? Absolutely not. Sure, I had the nagging sensation that my charges would suddenly stop, turn, and engulf me in one multicolored wave of death. But on the other hand, I was having a blast unleashing my diminutive nightmares upon the world. Despite their sinister methods of reproduction, I felt hugely guilty when they drowned or otherwise expired on my watch.

And then Pikmin 4 introduced me to Leaflings, an encounter I was not remotely prepared for. Half-human, half Pikmin, Leaflings are capable of transforming others into their own, warped kind. I watched helplessly as the Red Leafling sucked a hapless colonist into his onion, subjecting him to this twisted transformation. My whole System Shock 2 theory became a lot less farfetched.

With its Leaflings, Nintendo has dialed the horror up to 11 in Pikmin 4. But there’s always been something a little off about the series, and it may go back to the creatures’ design.  Co-developer Junji Morii, who designed their distinctive appearance, was inspired by the work of Tim Burton.

“I wanted the designs to not just be cute, but also give a sense of eeriness, or some emotional weight,” he remarks in a Nintendo Ask the Developer interview. Certainly, Pikmin 1’s bad ending could be right out of Burton’s The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories.

(Nintendo/Junji Morii)

Maybe, at some point down the line, Nintendo will come up with a sanitized version of the Pikmin life cycle. They’re not flesh-molding the creatures they capture; they’re just hugging them until they realize the error of their ways and join the Super Happy Pikmin Family™.

But I’ve come to appreciate Pikmin 4’s unsettling undertones. It’s the closest Nintendo has come to actual horror, and I can’t wait to see how Pikmin 5 is going to traumatize me.