Shigesato Itoi, creator of the Earthbound (known as Mother in Japan) series of games and editor-in-chief of the popular Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun website, says that some sort of Earthbound return is underway.
Before you get excited, it’s not Earthbound 4.
Over Twitter, Itoi shared: “Since I’m allowed to drop it on you all now, I’ll just go ahead and say it. The “Mother re-release” I’d mentioned a bit before, we’re making progress on that.”
He added later: “It’s not 4! We’re trying to get Mother working again right now. I still can’t mention any details, but I have to make clear that this isn’t ‘4’!”
Judging by the way it’s worded, it sounds like Itoi could be saying that the involved parties are trying to get Earthbound prepped and working on current systems or for current audiences. A Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console release, perhaps?
Earthbound, for those that aren’t familiar, is a series of role-playing games published by Nintendo. The second game in the series, Mother 2 was released in North America, and was the first and only Mother game to be officially released outside Japan.