Nintendo E3 2021 Prediction and Expectations

Nia and Pyra in Xenoblade 2

Every year, people across the world pay attention to the biggest videogame announcements during E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The Nintendo Switch is currently standing tall as one of the most popular Nintendo platforms ever with just under 85 million units sold in 4 years. The world’s eyes will be on the E3 2021 Nintendo Direct at 12pm EDT/9am PDT on Tuesday, June 15, 2021 to see how Nintendo intends to keep the console selling well in the face of Microsoft and Sony’s newly released consoles. As with many companies, Nintendo was also adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, having to move its workforce home without an infrastructure to support it. This E3 will not only show the fruits of many years of previous work but of delayed projects that were near completion that also got affected by the global pandemic. With no industry connections, here is some good old predictions on what I expect this E3. As a bonus, we will also update this post a week after E3 to see what predictions were right on the money, and what never materialized.

Breath of the Wild 2

Playable Zelda? I wish

This one is a gimme of sorts since everyone predicted that Nintendo was pretty far into the project before COVID-19 struck the world. What I expect coming out of this E3 is several things, gameplay of the new Zelda that showcases what makes this different from the legendary Breath of the Wild. The second one is a date or at least a season and year they are planning on releasing the game. The third prediction is something a little far off, which is that they will do something drastically different from its predecessor such as have playable Princess Zelda or add some multiplayer elements to keep people playing the game. Whatever the case is, we should know way more about Breath of the Wild 2 after E3 than before the event started.

Xenoblade 3

Xenoblade: Definitive Edition

It was kind of well known that when Final Fantasy left to become a sort of Sony exclusive RPG series, Nintendo’s always wanted to have its own Final Fantasy JRPG franchise. They tried many times with games like Baten Kaitos, The Last Story, and finally Xenoblade at the tail end of the Wii’s life. The latter came from Monolithsoft, a wholly-owned development studio that Namco sold to after Nintendo’s failed Namco acquisition. Xenoblade had many hallmarks of being Nintendo’s “Final Fantasy Challenger,” featuring an amazing musical score, great gameplay and exploration, an incredible cast of characters, an open world, and a twisting complex story. The game was hobbled by the Wii’s collapse in sales and Nintendo of America’s unwillingness to localize it, leaving it to get localized by Nintendo of Europe. This led to one of the franchise’s unique characteristics, British voice actors to give it a unique flair among Japanese RPG games.

The franchise has its huge breakout moment with Xenoblade 2 on the Nintendo Switch, being the first large budget JRPG on the console. It would sell over 2.1 million copies worldwide (as of December 2020), and no doubt sold much more with the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate inclusion of Xenoblade 2 main characters Pyra and Mythra. Hopefully, we get updated official numbers one day.

It’s been several years since Xenoblade 2 and its prequel Xenoblade 2 ~ Torna: The Golden Country came out. Since then, they bulked up the number of employees to 274 people, becoming the largest RPG studio outside of SquareEnix. This means that we can expect Xenoblade 3 either in this E3 or in a Fall Nintendo Direct. I can’t predict much about the game, but one thing is for sure, all eyes are on the franchise since Nintendo finally has its own crown jewel JRPG series.

No Switch Pro

The Nintendo Switch update that people kept on insisting would exist for 2 years has not happened yet. All the rumors are suggesting a “pro” iterative jump (a la New 3DS, PS4 Pro, or XBone X). It makes sense because using a more advanced fabrication process, they could produce something that is at PS3.5+ portably and PS4 level docked (as opposed to the Nintendo Switch now that is at PS3 level portable and PS3.5+ docked). Thanks to huge investments into portable CPUs and GPUs because of the popularity of smartphones, it is easy and inexpensive to build a console with mature designs that are easily 3-5x more powerful than the Nintendo Switch. For example, the modern Cortex A78 is around 2-3x more powerful than the ARM Cortex A57, the Nintendo Switch CPU, in the same clock speeds, and it even outclasses the PS4 CPU by a gigantic margin. This easily translates to Nintendo Switch games running at native resolution on portable mode and docked games easily running at 1080p with no frame drops. It will also greatly extend the lifetime of the Nintendo Switch so a Nintendo Switch 2 in several years would be a gigantic jump from the original console. I predict it won’t be seen at E3 because they want to focus on the games, and if it does get released later this year, it will get its own thing in late July or early August.

New Fire Emblem

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Yeah, I know, I kept this one nebulous and vague because they could do so many things with this. Intelligent Systems mostly farmed out Fire Emblem: Three Houses to Koei Tecmo, and it ended up being one of the best FE games ever made. Intelligent Systems was busy making Paper Mario and updating Fire Emblem: Heroes. They could easily go three routes with Fire Emblem. The first route is a brand-new game, taking and iterating on the past. The second route is doing a remake of a classic game and following up with Fire Emblem Echoes: (insert subtitle here). The third route is also an interesting one, which is porting over the 3DS Fire Emblem games, and just doing a quick and dirty port, or doing a “complete edition” with remade character models, including all the DLC, and maybe even add a semi-sequel or additional story content. I would consider any new Fire Emblem announcement a win, even Fire Emblem Warriors 2.

Other stuff

There are many other things Nintendo could announce, but I will stick with these four for my predictions. I would love to get more surprise JRPG announcements or classic games like a Final Fantasy collection or a Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross collection. Whatever the case is, this should be an amazing E3.

How did I do in the Prediction Game?

Looks like 2/4 things happened, so I batted 50% for my guesses for E3, lets give a rundown of what happened:

• Breath of the Wild 2: The game got delayed further to a nebulous 2022 with a chance of the game getting delayed further. Got correct!
• Xenoblade 3: Nothing announced, MonolithSoft likely got affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and they are knee deep into development. Incorrect Prediction!
• No Switch Pro: Judging with so many big games being pushed to 2022, I am thinking that this might not even happen until next year. It could get a "soft launch" this fall. Got Correct!
  
• New Fire Emblem: Didn't happen, better luck next time? Incorrect Prediction!

With that said, this E3 was a phenomenal presentation with Fatal Frame, Warioware, Shin Megami Tensei V, Advance Wars 1+2 remake, Metroid V, and much more.