Highlights
- Fans disappointed as Mother 3 only coming to Nintendo Switch Online in Japan, sparking social media outrage.
- Creator Shigesato Itoi responds to fans urging for Western release, stating decision is up to Nintendo.
- Unofficial fan translation of Mother 3 released in 2008 remains only way to play the game in English.
While yesterday’s Nintendo Direct showcase confirmed a total of five new games coming to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, the 23-minute showcase failed to mention that Mother 3 would also be coming to the subscription service, but only in Japan.
The announcement quickly made the rounds on social media, with fans expressing their disappointment that the almost 20-year-old title still isn’t receiving some form of Western release. As fans expressed their outrage at the decision, Mother 3 quickly became a trending topic on X (formerly Twitter), prompting the game’s creator, Shigesato Itoi, to respond to the situation.
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Despite no longer being heavily involved in the video game industry, Mother 3 fans continue to badger Itoi for a Western release. After the announcement of Mother 3’s Nintendo Switch Online release, Itoi said that it “was hard to stay silent” after he was told about the news a while ago. In response, one fan urged the Mother 3 creator to release an English version someday, to which he responded:
“Please talk to Nintendo about that, not me.”
Unfortunately, it appears as though Mother 3 coming to the West isn’t actually a decision for developers 1-Up Studio inc. (formerly Brownie Brown) and HAL Laboratory. So, if you really want to see Mother 3 come to the West, you’ll have to start petitioning to Nintendo.
Although there’s no official English release of Mother 3, a full, unofficial, fan translation was released back in 2008. The project was led by Clyde Mandelin, along with a small team of translators and hackers, to translate the entirety of Mother 3 (also known as Earthbound 3). After being released on October 17th, 2008, the fan translation was downloaded “well over 100,000 times,” according to the project’s website.
The team behind the English translation got to work after a Nintendo localization employee admitted that he “knew nothing about Mother 3 besides the name,” which was the final nail in Mother 3’s figurative coffin. Almost twenty years later, Nintendo appears to still be pretty adamant that there will be no Western release, making this unofficial translation the only way to play Mother 3 in English.
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