The player controls a captain which commands a horde of up to 100 plant-like creatures called Pikmin, and uses their unique abilities to explore the world, combat enemies, solve puzzles, and amass treasures.

Pikmin can be directed to accomplish various tasks, such as building bridges, destroying barriers, collecting spoils, and defeating enemies.

Aside from the single-player story campaign, the game features a split-screen two-player multiplayer mode called Bingo Battle, in which each player has a 4-by-4 grid of items to collect, and must compete to get four-in-a-row on their board.

[4] Mission Mode is a single-player or cooperative multiplayer experience where the players are presented with a task based on Pikmin fundamentals, which must be completed in a limited amount of time.

The trio recover some of Captain Olimar's lost data files, and find out that he has the key, having mistakenly thought it was a treasure.

There, the captains and the Pikmin defeat a mysterious life form known as the Plasm Wraith to save Olimar, and he returns the cosmic drive key to them.

The three use the key for the ship, offering Olimar and Louie a ride back to Hocotate, and they return home as the Pikmin wave goodbye.

If the player collects all fruits, the narrator states that the three have successfully completed their mission to restore life in Koppai and that the S.S. Drake's crash-landing may not have been an accident.

"[6] A later CNET.com interview in April 2008 reported that "For now, Miyamoto looks ahead to other projects for the Wii, mentioning his desire to continue the Pikmin series.

"[7] A new Pikmin game was confirmed at E3 2008 during Nintendo's developer roundtable, in which Miyamoto stated that his team were working on a new entry in the series.

When questioned about the presence or absence of the purple and white Pikmin types featured in the second game, Miyamoto stated that "They're in there somewhere, just hidden...".

[22] The game and all of its DLC packs were de-listed from the Wii U Nintendo eShop in August 2020 following the announcement of Pikmin 3 Deluxe on Switch.

[23] The game would eventually be re-listed a short time later, minus the ability to purchase the DLC directly from Wii U Nintendo eShop.

[24] Indirect purchase of the DLC however within game through the Pikmin 3 title itself remained available until the Wii U Nintendo eShop's closure on March 27, 2023.

[72] Ben Croshaw of The Escapist praised the graphics, controls, and incentive for urgency, but critiqued the Wii U for not initially utilizing the touch screen as a means of individually selecting targets.

In Japan, Pikmin 3 became the best-selling game of its launch week, with around 93,000 copies in two days and helping to sell 22,200 Wii U systems.

[75] In the US, it became the best-selling game of its debut week, and according to the NPD Group, 115,000 units were sold in its first month, entering the all-formats chart at number 10.