Nintendo interested in creating new characters, but wants to be careful about it
Posted on July 22, 2026 by Brian(@NE_Brian)
in General Nintendo, News
Expect to see more new characters from Nintendo in the future, though the company will be giving careful consideration to its approach.
For a long time we’ve seen the company have huge success with the likes of Mario and Link from The Legend of Zelda. Other characters have been introduced throughout the years, including the Inklings from Splatoon – which have been very popular and a hit in Japan especially.
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto acknowledged in a Famitsu interview this week that “it’s good to create new characters.” At the same time, the company has to be “strict in judging whether they’ll really work globally.” While sharing his thoughts, Miyamoto did say that Nintendo needs “to be more proactive” in creating new characters.
His full response is as follows:
“We’ll be flexible in that regard, but it’s good to create new characters. However, I think we need to be strict in judging whether they’ll really work globally. Even during the development of Splatoon, there were times when we thought, ‘If the characters are going to be like this, wouldn’t it be better to just use Mario?’ And then, when we came up with the prototype for the Inklings that are out there now, we realized, ‘With these, there’s no need to use Mario.’
It’s been 25 years since I arrived at Pikmin, which was the result of my own pursuit of a globally appealing character, so we need to be more proactive to create new ones. I’ll leave that to the younger generation (laughs).”
We have more from Miyamoto talking about how Nintendo chooses its software lineup here. He also had a few things to say about remakes here.
More: interview, Shigeru Miyamoto, top
