Summary
A developer who worked on 2009’sPunch-Outgame for theWiihas reportedly claimed that the series is unlikely to return due to the “significant” backlash to its stereotypical characters.
As anyone who has been waiting for a newStar FoxorF-Zerogame will no doubt be aware of,Nintendo is sitting on an awful lot of unused games and series. While it does occasionally like to surprise us all by bringing them back every now and again (just take a look at last year’s new Famicom Detective Club), there are some franchises that seem like they won’t be returning.
One of my biggest hopes for the Switch 2 was to finally see a successor to 2009’s Punch-Out from Next Level Games, which captured the original’s charm and dialled it up to 11. It seems that Nintendo doesn’t quite see it that way, though, as a developer who worked on the game has seemingly shut down any hopes of it returning.
Don’t Expect Punch-Out To Make A Comeback
As pointed out by Nintendo Everything, a ResetEra user recently started a thread discussing Punch-Out and saying that they hoped to see Little Mac return in Nintendo’s future.That prompted a response from gaming journalist and Kinda Funny presenter Imran Khan, who shared an anecdote from when they got drunk with a developer that’s “close” to the series, seemingly meaning from Next Level Games.
According to Khan, that anonymous developer said that there was “significantly” morebacklash regarding the game’s stereotypical character designs than Nintendo or Next Level Games expected. This was after the developers assured Nintendo that it wouldn’t be a problem, leaving them to furrow their brows and “call it done”.
The story I was told, and bear in mind this could just be the perspective of one person and no one else, was that there was significantly more backlash against the characters of the Wii game than they expected. And this team spent a lot of time assuring Nintendo that they weren’t leaning into bad stereotypes that would get called out this time, so everyone just kind of furrowed their brow and called it done. - Imran Khan
This, combined with the fact that Next Level Games had other titles with more sales potential, has basically put the final nail in the coffin for Punch-Out, as it seems tough to bring the series back without its iconic characters from across the world. While Nintendocoulddo a new Punch-Out with a different developer, it does seem like a tall task considering how important the characters are to the series.
