Captain Olimar Added to Pikmin Later on in Development Process

When Shigeru Miyamoto and his team first crafted Pikmin, there was originally no human player, the game designer recalls.

In a new interview with GamesMaster, the designer revealed that with the Pikmin franchise, the initial goal wasn't clear - the team had a "very vague image of whatever we would like to establish", initally starting with a "small bunch of creatures doing something".

In this case, those same little critters would be the Pikmin and they would be "protecting their own village and at the same time they are trying to grow and expand that village".

The concept behind controlling a squadron of Pikmin as Captain Olimar actually came much later in the process, even being the enemy themselves at one point.

Later on we added the feature so that the player character will be there. But at the beginning I thought that it wouldn't be interesting enough because in that original development mode the Pikmin were used as if [they were] weapons. To be utilised, to be shot by the player themselves.