New Punch-Out!! game may not happen, future in doubt [update: another take]

January 2: Some fans have been dying to see a new Punch-Out!! game – be it on Nintendo Switch or its successor. However, it looks like the wait will continue, and even if another entry happens, it may not be from Next Level Games.

Imran Khan, who writes for Venture Beat and is also with Kinda Funny Games (who previously leaked Everybody 1-2 Switch before it was announced), recently made a post on ResetEra claiming that he caught up with someone from “a studio close to Punch-Out” and heard that the characters in the Wii title received backlash relating to stereotypes, and the response was more than had been expected. It seems that following that, Nintendo more or less decided to pull the plug on continuing the franchise further.

Khan shared the following in his post, which cautions that it “could just be the perspective of one person and no one else”:

“I got someone from, let’s say a studio close to Punch-Out, drunk at a bar once and asked about a new one. The story I was told, and bear in mind this could just be the perspective of one person and no one else, was that there was significantly more backlash against the characters of the Wii game than they expected. And this team spent a lot of time assuring Nintendo that they weren’t leaning into bad stereotypes that would get called out this time, so everyone just kind of furrowed their brow and called it done. Especially since other games from that team had much, much higher sales potential.”

The last line Khan could be referring to is the Luigi’s Mansion series. Luigi’s Mansion 3, which shipped on Nintendo Switch in 2019, has sold around 15 million copies and is one of the most successful games on the system. 

The wait between Punch-Out!! on Wii and Super Punch-Out!! for SNES was 16 years. Next Level Games made their game in 2009, so the wait for a new entry has now even been longer than that.

You can at least experience Punch-Out!! on Nintendo Switch as the Arcade Archives release happened a few years ago. Read about that here.

Thanks to Greatsong1 for the tip.

January 8: Time Extension has now shared its own report on this after speaking with past Next Level Games employees who were not named.

One of those sources mentioned not recalling negative feedback regarding stereotypes. These employees apparently indicated that there it was never planned to produce an immediate follow-up other than the Doc Louis version, which was a Club Nintendo exclusive. One source said a new gameplay hook would be needed for a new Punch-Out!! game.

As for stereotypes, a source said the following:

“We faced quite a few challenges on the Wii version in regards to avoiding or perpetuating cultural stereotypes. Things like Great Tiger’s mysticism or Aran Ryan’s brusque Irish mannerisms just made the cut after a lengthy debate. Previous characters like Kid Quick were cut due to their dated representation and instead replaced with more modern original characters like Disco Kid. Some stereotypes we actually leaned in to, like Bear Hugger, since we were a Canadian developer and felt comfortable with doing so.”

So ultimately, it remains to be seen what happens with Punch-Out!! The fact is that it’s been a very long time since a new entry, but only those inside Nintendo can make definitive statements about its future.