Ahead of Nintendo’s E3 video presentation on Tuesday, an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto has been released, revealing three Wii U projects that will be officially announced today. Time magazine spoke to the Nintendo design legend ahead of E3 where he confirmed his work on a brand new Star Fox video game that revolves entirely around the Wii U’s screen-enabled GamePad.
According to the report, Star Fox for Wii U, which has been in development since the Wii era, will feature the usual Arwing and Tank modes – oh yeah, you’re doing a barrel roll – along with a “helicopter-like craft” to be operated by two players, one of them controls a dangling helper cannon that can collect items or attack enemies. These craft require moving the motion-sensitive GamePad while tilting the control sticks at the same time.
The other two projects, clearly labeled as “experimental,” have been codenamed Project Giant Robot and Project Guard. The first turns players into, you know, giant robots and uses motion sensors to react to players’ movements in real life as they go into robo-fisticuffs. The latter has been described as a kind of tower defense game that requires touching the Wii U GamePad’s screen to place and switch security cameras to attack a base’s intruders, while the TV’s main screen displays the base as a whole.
The games in question are all pretty far from launch; Star Fox is “at least a year away.” We’ll have more on this and other announcements from Nintendo’s online-only E3 press event.
Update: Nintendo has issued a press release detailing Miyamoto’s three Wii U projects, confirming that they will all be released sometime in 2015. Clarification of the motion control details of Star Fox (“working title”), Nintendo said the game will “turn the Wii U GamePad into the view from the cockpit of Fox McCloud’s Arwing fighter. While the TV shows the perspective from behind the Arwing, players can also use the gyro sensors of the GamePad to intuitively and independently attack enemies.”