Hard-boiled noir fiction doesn’t get much softer or brighter than Nintendo’s Detective Pikachu, a game which saw a behatted, chatty Pikachu solve Pokemon mysteries in Ryme City with his trusty human sidekick, Tim Goodman. That game, a major departure from the regular “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” narrative, was popular enough to branch out into a feature film. Now, as part of this week’s Nintendo Direct, we know the adventures in the game world won’t end. Check out the trailer for the aptly named sequel Detective Pikachu Returns.
Pikachu, who makes sure to tell everyone he’s a great detective, finds himself on several new mysterious trails in the game. We don’t know exactly what, but we see tons of different Pokémon that could easily be in trouble and/or evil. Mewtwo also rears his purple head in the Detective Pikachu Returns trailer. If Mewtwo is around, trouble can’t be far behind. Luckily, Detective Pikachu has Tim again, in his “iconic red hoodie.” You didn’t know a hoodie could be iconic, eh? But it is.
Pokémon is one of the most recognizable and popular video game brands in the entire world, and I love that it isn’t content to stay in its one lane. The first Detective Pikachu offered fans a look into the world of the pocket monsters they’d never gotten before. This new game seems to be more of that, and that is definitely not a bad thing.
Detective Pikachu Returns will hit the Nintendo Switch on October 6, 2023.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.