It’s been three years since The Pokémon Company announced Detective Pikachu 2 for the Nintendo Switch. And given the complete silence on the project since, you’d be forgiven for having completely forgotten it was ever a thing. However, due to a throwaway line on a developer’s LinkedIn profile, it seems it’s not only still extant, but coming out soon!
Detective Pikachu was somehow a 2018 (in the West) 3DS game in which the world’s most popular pocket monster steps away from his usual role of throwing deadly balls of electricity at absolutely anyone his tyrant master demands, gains the ability to talk, and starts to investigate crime. You probably are already picturing the Ryan Reynolds film instead of the game, and that’s fine, because it was absolutely marvellous. “Deadpool for kids,” I tell anyone foolish enough to get near me. The game itself was lovely, if not groundbreaking.
Word of a sequel was given in 2019, the same year the film adaptation came out. But since then, there’s not been a squeak nor a pika. However, unlike the film, the first game’s plot didn’t conclude, making its absence more of a bummer. In 2019, The Pokémon Company’s president, Tsunekazu Ishihara, explained in a Pokémon Business Strategy Announcement that the new sequel would have a different ending from the movie.
And then all was quiet.
Until today, when a cleverclogs on Famiboards spotted a throwaway comment from developer Jonathan Murphy’s LinkedIn page. Detailing work experience in his current role at Creatures Inc, where he’s worked for the last five years, Murphy says (and it’s still there at the time of writing), “Using Unity/C#, worked on one unannounced project and one nearing release, Detective Pikachu 2.”
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This is quite the surprise, given that the game’s not made an appearance during a single Direct, nor even seen an entry in Nintendo’s financial reports, the most recent of which (pdf) mentions elusive titles like Metroid Prime 4, but doesn’t feature the diminutive detective at all. So if it’s really nearing completion, the company’s keeping it incredibly close to its chest. (Scarlet and Violet are on there, in case you’re wondering if it’s because they might not consider a Creatures Inc or Gamefreak game first-party for some reason.)
The previous Detective Pikachu came out in Japan two years before its Western release, the latter given impetus by the release of the movie. So it could be that a Japanese-only version might be nearly done? I don’t know! Stop asking.
We’ve reached out to Jonathan Murphy, who didn’t comment, and to Creatures itself, to see if we can get more confirmation.
