Have you been wondering whatever happened to the Punch-Out franchise in Nintendo’s portfolio? Apparently, Nintendo just hasn’t come up with a fun idea for a new game. According to Time Extension, who spoke with some anonymous developers at Next Level Games, the hiatus is not a product of people criticizing the game for its characters depicting certain stereotypes.
On Christmas Eve, Venture Beat’s Imran Khan posted a comment on ResetERA, talking about how he had gotten someone from “a studio close to Punch-Out” drunk, and they revealed that Punch-Out never got a new game following its Wii days because of criticism towards certain characters on its roster and other games from the team selling much better, like Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Mario Strikers Charged. Khan also includes that this was just the perspective of one person, and we don’t really know how close they were to Punch-Out’s production to begin with.
Will there ever be another Punch-Out game?
Getting back to the Time Extension article, once Punch-Out released on the Wii, there were never plans to make a sequel outside of the Doc Louis WiiWare spin-off. It seems that Punch-Out is kind of in the same area as F-Zero right now, where Nintendo wants to come up with something new before it makes another game in the series, and right now its development teams are really focusing on other areas. With that focus on doing something different, you get a game like Arms on the Switch, while Mac is relegated to just seeing his representation on Super Smash Bros.
The anonymous devs did reveal that they had a little bit of trouble getting Nintendo to agree to some characters on Punch-Out Wii, but when you compare the final roster to what used to be in the original game on NES, it’s not nearly as “questionable.” For example, the Russian boxer who was originally named Vodka Drunkenski.
As it stands now, it seems that Punch-Out isn’t looking to get a new game any time soon, but that doesn’t mean it’s done forever. When you compare it to the many other Nintendo franchises, it can be hard to say we absolutely “need” a new Punch-Out game. Since Nintendo are dipping their toes into other forms of media lately, maybe it could see an animated series adaptation if we are lucky.
