Nintendo has announced Pictonico!, a fun and innovative mobile game that turns your photos into rapid-fire comedy microgames. It’s essentially tapping into TikTok culture's need for quick-fire seconds of fun before swiping for more. In some ways, it feels like Nintendo’s most interesting thing in a while, and also one of the most old-fashioned Nintendo games. With that in mind, the other reaction is, why on earth isn’t this a WarioWare game?
Nintendo is going for the same scrappy energy as the classic WarioWare series – it’s quick-fire nonsense, basic in design, where split-second reactions prove fun. It's the kind of casual game Nintendo used to make all the time during the DS and Wii eras. In fact, these kinds of games were all the rage at one point, from WarioWare to Bishi Bashi Special and even the recently resurrected Point Black, via the excellent G’AIM’E console.
Instead of branding this as a new WarioWare for Gen Z, Nintendo has gone with a new name and marketing approach, which is bold when you consider how hard it is to launch a mobile game in 2026 without people instantly scrolling past it, thinking it’s a photo filter app or just another data grab.
The actual idea is extremely Nintendo in design, as the app pulls from your own photos and turns them into tiny, absurd mini-games. There’s even a little of the old Game Boy Camera era in the silly games you can play, which is a reminder that Nintendo has always been a company that would happily spend millions making something ridiculous and take a gamble on a trend at just the right time.
Which is why I still can’t quite get over the fact that this isn't a new WarioWare game. Comparisons aren’t going away because, tonally, Pictonico! already feels like a series of Wario-like nonsense, and slapping WarioWare on the logo probably would’ve done half the marketing work for Nintendo overnight.
Nintendo fans, and most people, know what WarioWare is, or at least recognise the name. Say the name, see the character, and you instantly get the pitch: fast, stupid, funny, probably a little gross (in a family-friendly way), and definitely Nintendo. That’s valuable branding, especially on mobile, where you’ve got about three seconds before someone loses interest, opens TikTok instead, and goes down a shame well of generic AI filters.
At the same time, I can imagine why Nintendo didn’t do it. Wario has become its own carefully managed thing now, and Pictonico! looks more disposable and experimental. If this were a new WarioWare entry, it would also have raised expectations and development costs, as Nintendo fans would demand more animation, more Wario finesse, and perhaps wouldn’t overlook any shortcuts the game takes.
Pictonico! is Nintendo getting weird again and making the kind of oddball experimental nonsense the company used to release between major games, but without spending stupid money on something like the Virtual Boy. It's maybe more in line with Paper Mario and Tomodachi Life, which has admittedly made an awkward comeback.
In this respect, Pictonico! feels like one of those weird Nintendo projects, which is probably why so many people immediately assumed Wario had to be, or should be, involved somehow. For a certain generation of Nintendo fans, WarioWare wasn’t just a series; it was the label Nintendo stuck on its strangest ideas. But here’s the thing, I’d imagine if Pictonico! takes off, we’d more than likely get special branded event editions, Pictonico! Wario Edition can’t be far off.
Try Pictonico! now on iOS and Android devices, visit the official Nintendo webpage for more details.
