E3 has begun, but we have yet to see what Nintendo will reveal at this year's conference. This is when excitement is at its peak, but none of us know what we are to see less than a week from now. Well, none of us know for sure, but we might be able to guess what happened, and that is what I am here to do today. I'll be going game-by-game, giving my predictions for each.
Getting the big one out of the way, Super Smash Bros. is confirmed to be shown. It will be a new game, whose title will allude to a currently unknown gameplay mechanic, explaining why we do not know the title yet. The Direct will open with a gameplay reveal, opening the door for character reveals throughout the presentation. There will be at least three of these reveals during the presentation (one of which will be Captain Toad, and there may be an indie rep), and there may even be one more (likely Ice Climbers) at the invitational, just before the fighting starts. The game will release in September.
Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion will also get a trailer showcasing the hub world of the game, releasing in July. Octopath Traveller will also be mentioned briefly.
Nintendo will also be reminding everyone that Yoshi exists, giving it a title and slightly revamped character models to better match the art style. There will also be a release date revealed for August.
Releasing alongside Super Smash Bros. will be Nintendo's online service, which they will give an overview of during the presentation. There will be no features beyond what we already know except for dedicated servers for competitive multiplayer games.
The problem with any game in October is that in a Nintendo context, it would be sandwiched between Super Smash Bros. and Pokémon, and in the greater context of gaming, it would be among juggernauts such as Red Dead Redemption 2, so it would not get much hype, even if it were a larger franchise. However, "luckily" for it, it is not like Pikmin would not garner much hype anyways. In other words, the fourth mainline game in the Pikmin series will be unveiled this E3 with an October release date. Being a single-player game, it would not be reliant on online features, preventing the issue of having a strong online community (a major challenge, considering Smash Bros. would be launching the previous month).
We already know that Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu and Eevee! will be playable on the show floor, and I think that there will be some mention of it during the direct. More notably, the treehouse will showcase the game's opening, possibly going all the way up to Viridian City, where the show floor demo will start. The demo will start at Viridian and focus on the journey to Pewter City. When the players reach the city (or when the allotted time runs out, whichever comes first), the demo will end.
The final main title for the year, releasing in December, will be Fire Emblem. I have no more details, just the release window.
Star Fox Grand Prix will also be real, much to the outrage of many F-Zero fans, with a release date in early 2019. There will be a treehouse segment with the developers (likely with gameplay), in which it will be revealed that the game started development as an F-Zero revival.
The Metroid Prime Trilogy will also be announced for the Switch to be released in early 2019, but with a twist: Metroid Prime Hunters will also be included in the collection. It's also possible that they could throw Federation Force in there as well, but it's less likely. Instead of Metroid Prime Trilogy, they will likely brand it as Metroid Prime Stories, or something along those lines.
We will get teaser trailers for both Metroid Prime 4 and Bayonetta 3. These will be cinematic trailers establishing the setup for both games. Both will also be given a vague "2019" release window, with both ultimately releasing in the latter half of that year.
The 3DS will have a presence at the treehouse, though it won't make much of a splash. We'll get release dates for the currently revealed games, and there will only be one new reveal for the system, slated for 2018. This new reveal is probably a remake, and the only reaction it will get is "Why is this not on the Switch?"
As for the 3rd party support, I think the Switch will get some this E3. Bethesda will like put a Fallout game on the system, though I'm not sure what. Fortnite is about as poorly kept of a secret as Mario + Rabbids was last year, but I will predict that there will be Nintendo-exclusive cosmetics to draw hesitant Nintendo fans in. Finally, I think I'll give my craziest prediction here: Square-Enix will announce a Final Fantasy collection in the vain of the Mega Man Legacy Collection for the Switch, probably including Final Fantasy 1-6.
That is it for my E3 predictions! If you have E3 predictions of your own, feel free to document them here before it is too late! I leave you with this bingo card for the event. (Shoutout to Volderhein for the idea.) See you all when this is said and done!
