Fans have been dreaming of an Earthbound remake release date for years. While the original didn’t sell well when it was originally released, it quickly became a cult classic. However, for some reason, except for adding Ness and Lucas to Super Smash Bros., Nintendo has done little to acknowledge the series. We’ll take a look at when and if we might see a remake of Earthbound hit the Nintendo Switch.
Will there be an Earthbound remake release date?
There’s no Earthbound remake release date announced as of now. Earthbound (Mother 2) isn’t even available on Nintendo Switch Online, so it doesn’t look good for a remake of the game coming anytime soon. The cry for Nintendo to bring Mother 3 to the West has become a meme at this point, and we doubt it’d bother to do a full remake of Earthbound if it won’t even localize a Game Boy Advance game.
It’s not known why Nintendo is so reluctant to acknowledge the Mother series. The first game in the series was fully localized for release on the NES, but was abandoned until finally receiving an official release as Earthbound Beginnings on the Wii U Virtual Console. Earthbound was released close to the end of the SNES’s life and did poorly in America. Mother 3 never saw release outside Japan and had a tumultuous development cycle that began on the 64DD in 1996. When that peripheral failed to launch on time, development stalled. Eventually, it was moved to the Game Boy Advance, and the game finally released in 2006. Even though the game did well in Japan and had a lot of support from fans worldwide, Nintendo has never localized it.
The main blocker might be the creator of the Mother series, Shigesato Itoi. Itoi has repeatedly stated that he has no interest in returning to game development and that he has no plans to create Mother 4. So it could be out of respect to Itoi that Nintendo declines to make an Earthbound remake or to localize Mother 3.
