It’s no secret that Nintendo isn’t in the business of making big new IPs and hasn’t for nearly a decade, and as a result many Nintendo fans aren’t begging for new ones to be made. And if you don’t believe me, consider the fact that 19 out of the top 20 best selling Switch games were either ports, remakes, or entries into established franchises, with the only completely new property in the bunch being Ring Fit Adventure at number 10.
As a result of the general indifference towards new IPs from both sides, many that actually crop up end up selling poorly and languishing in obscurity, mostly being remembered by the lucky few who managed to pick them up on release. Here are four relatively new IPs fully owned by Nintendo that you most likely forgot about until this very moment, all of which came out within the last few years and all got physical releases in all regions.
And before y’all say anything, Splatoon is a major exception here. The main reason, I feel, is twofold: 1) it had an actually solid marketing campaign behind it and 2) team based shooters were in no way a niche genre by the time the first game was coming out, so Splatoon was pretty much set up for success right from the start. ARMS was also successful for a new IP but to a much lesser extent, and Nintendo doesn’t seem keen on revisiting the IP anytime soon. With that out of the way, let’s talk about the truly unlucky souls:
**1. [Code Name STEAM (2015)](https://youtu.be/6SezVDf66YA):** Out of all of these games, this is the one that gets me the most. Made by Intelligent Systems, this was a third person turn based strategy game with a really fun and ridiculous premise and a ton of polish, and no one gave a damn most likely because it was drowned under the hype for Splatoon. Plenty of characters, weapons, and challenges are in there to encourage replayability, but it still wasn’t enough. Strategy games in general are a niche genre all things considered, and a key reason Fire Emblem Awakening roped in a lot of newcomers was not because of its brain-tickling tactical gameplay, let’s be real. Maybe that’s why Nintendo had the devs include [FE characters via Amiibo](https://youtu.be/4EO6NsPqBRA), as a last ditch effort to get people to care. Well at least this game finally gave Marth an English voice, which he’s been using ever since.
**2. [Ever Oasis (2017)](https://youtu.be/1fsPHrBtzAw):** This one can be chalked up due to poor timing. Revealed at E3 2016 right after Nintendo showed off Breath of the Wild, this wholesome action RPG was brought to us courtesy of Koichi Ishii, creator of the Mana series and the Chocobo and Moogle for Square Enix. It was also developed as a whole by Grezzo, the studio responsible for various Nintendo ports and remakes in the past decade from Ocarina of Time 3D to Miitopia on Switch. You play as the leader of a settlement trying to bring life and community into a vast desert. To put it simply, think Zelda meets Harvest Moon. It finally released a few months into the Switch’s year on the market and right as ARMS was coming out, so it should come as no surprise that this game didn’t do well.
**3. [Sushi Striker (2018)](https://youtu.be/rr_tWiwW42E):** This oddity of a game was revealed for the 3DS at E3 2017, before also being announced for the Switch in March 2018. In either case, no one really remembers this game and the game reportedly sold less than 8,000 copies worldwide across both platforms in its first week. It’s an action puzzle game with a premise and story about as quirky as Code Name STEAM, and it was brought to us courtesy of indieszero, the studio responsible for various rhythm games for Square Enix in the past decade. At least this one is on the Switch, so way more people have access to it. And it has an absolute slapper of a [theme song](https://youtu.be/2yZZBb-O_bw).
**4. [Astral Chain (2019)](https://youtu.be/brmmV3g4qqo):** Out of all these games this one easily sold the most, clearing the 1 million unit threshold by a decent amount. Astral Chain is a new action game IP co-developed by Nintendo and PlatinumGames, under the supervision of gaming’s reigning Twitter blocking champion and the director of Nier Automata. You take control of a futuristic police officer and their robot alien partner simultaneously in Platinum’s patented winning combat formula, upgrading the two and doing menial police work along the way. Except now there’s a little bit of every Platinum game in here, from Bayonetta to Metal Gear Rising to Wonderful 101. The game was generally well received by action game fans, but it ultimately fell out of discourse in favor of Devil May Cry 5 which came out earlier that same year. And I don’t think being sandwiched in between Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Dragon Quest XI S really helped matters either. At least the game got a shoutout in that [Bayonetta 3 trailer](https://youtu.be/bUAtX8Ox7eI) from last year.