The move of Nintendo's Tokyo staff to Kanda Square happened in 2020. For the sake of adding to the conversation, here's a full timeline of 3D Mario / EPD Group 8 projects this hardware era:
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Announced: January 2017
- Released: October 2017
- Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (co-developed with NST)
- Announced: March 2018
- Completed: April 2018
- Released: July 2018
- Captain Toad DLC (co-developed with NST)
- Announced: February 2019
- Released: March 2019
- Job Recruitment for 3D Action Game (October 2019)
- Job Recruitment for 2D Action Game (August 2020)
- Super Mario 3D All-Stars (SM64 by iQue; SMS and SMG by NERD; UI / intergration by EPD)
- Announced and released: September 2020
- Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (co-developed with NST)
- Announced: September 2020
- Completed: November 2020
- Released: February 2021
Feel like it's worth elaborating on 3D All-Stars further though as there are certain oddities within it that are hardly mentioned by anyone (despite being disovered ages ago). As referenced above, the menu and intergration of the three games into one package was handled internally. The menu in 3D All-Stars uses the LunchPack engine which had not been utlised by EPD 8 prior. Curiously, the files for that game launcher menu include references to a massive number of data with unknown origins that can be tied back to EPD 8. First, a list of test stages:
All of the filenames here include the names of who presumably created them, and they all line up with EPD Tokyo staff credited as recently as Odyssey:
- Takeshi Hayakawa
- Hirokazu Matsuda
- Tatsuya Kurihara
- Hiroaki Hishinuma
Then, a large number of references to sound files (that can't be called on because they aren't present):
As mentioned before, EPD 8 have not yet released an actual game using the LunchPack engine yet, using their own proprietary engine 'al' since 3D Land; but the presence of these files suggests that could change eventually. The weird presence of Pikmin is also an interesting oddity, with most of the test maps featuring Pikmin in the name and there being a few sound files referencing it too (SnakeCrow = Burrowing Snagret). Keep in mind, Pikmin has not yet had a title in the LunchPack engine either as 3 does not use it.
EDIT: Oh right, I forgot to properly conclude my point. Perhaps the team taking the time to adap to LunchPack (every other EPD team but them and EPD 3, Zelda, are using it) is a possible explanation for why the next 3D Mario hasn’t popped up yet.