Yoshi and the Mysterious Book has the potential to show it shouldn’t be judged by its cover
2026 preview: Despite its familiar appearance, there could be hidden depth to this one
It’s funny how context can affect the reaction a game receives when it’s initially announced.
You only need to look at the most recent edition of The Game Awards to see how that plays out. On its own, Highguard looks like a perfectly inoffensive PvP shooter with an impressive pedigree from the creators of Apex Legends and Titanfall. On paper, it sounds like the sort of thing that should be a success.
When Highguard was revealed as the “one more thing” announcement at the end of The Game Awards, however – a slot usually reserved for high profile titles from revered IPs or studios – it was hit with heavy backlash and its YouTube trailer bombarded with dislikes.
Something similar (albeit not as extreme) happened back in September during a Nintendo Direct. The show itself ended with a different “one more thing” that also saw a mixed response – Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is a niche enough genre to not have the entire gaming community in raptures at its reveal.
It was earlier in the Direct, though – during the section dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros – where the biggest collective shrug of shoulders took place. With Nintendo promising new reveals to celebrate the milestone, players were hoping for a new 2D or 3D platformer starring Mario.
Instead, the “one more thing” during this segment was Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, meaning some reacted with disappointment – not necessarily at what they were seeing, but what they weren’t. Now that some time has passed and the game can be analysed for what it is, rather than its merit as a major announcement, it looks like there could be something special here.
Set to release in Spring 2026, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book doesn’t bury the lede when it comes to its title. It does indeed revolve around Yoshi and a curious tome – a sentient one by the name of Mister Encyclopedia (or Mr E, because Nintendo loves a good pun, hence Professor E Gadd).
Mr E falls from the sky one day and lands on the Yoshis’ island, looking for help. As an encyclopedia, he contains a wealth of information about various flora and fauna, but because his facial features are on the outside he can’t actually read his own pages. Using Mr E’s magical magnifying glass, Yoshi jumps into his pages to discover the book’s information for himself.
At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking the resulting game is a standard side-scrolling platformer in the style of Yoshi’s Woolly World, Yoshi’s Crafted World, or more likely N64 game Yoshi’s Story, which was also set inside a giant book. From the few minutes Nintendo has shown, however, it appears that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is less about getting from Point A to B, and more about exploring the world around you.
Each of the creatures you come across in the game interact with Yoshi and the environment in different ways. The aim isn’t to simply jump on their head and get on with your life, but to study each species and discover some of its behaviours and properties, so they can be added to the book.
The example given in the game’s first trailer is the Crazee Dayzee, a flower creature seen in previous Yoshi’s Island games. By interacting with it, the player can find out that it tastes sweet when Yoshi swallows one, it can ride on Yoshi’s back, and it can be used to make some flowers bloom when it passes over them.
Then there are dandelions, which scatter into the air when you run into them. If they land on a Crazee Dayzee it covers them in fluff and paralyses them, and if they land on rocks they can make them crack, leaving them more vulnerable to a ground pound move.
If the aim is to not only experiment with each creature but then use these newfound abilities to solve puzzles in each stage and access secret areas, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book could end up being a really interesting take on the genre which is deliberately designed to be played at a slower pace.
If that’s the case, and it ends up being something truly inventive, I’m sure there will be plenty of people rewriting their own story and denying that they were disappointed when it was originally announced during that Nintendo Direct. It may not have been the “one more thing” people were expecting for Super Mario Bros’s 40th anniversary, but it could turn out to be further proof that you shouldn’t judge a book – mysterious or otherwise – by its cover.
