A new Mario title could be unveiled as early as next year, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto told IGN in an interview published yesterday. The general manager of Nintendo EAD and long-time member of the company said that, “we’re always challenging ourselves to create something new, so hopefully you’ll see a new kind of Mario in about a year or two. Maybe next E3 we’ll be able to share something.”
Many will surely be quick to latch on to the phrase “a new kind of Mario,” in the hopes that whatever game he next appears in will be wildly different from everything that’s come before, especially off the back of Super Mario Maker which, while great, offered little in the way of innovation or evolution.
Could we see something as ambitious as Super Mario Galaxy being announced one or two years down the road? Quite possibly, but Miyamoto admits to IGN that taking such risks is more difficult with the Italian Plumber than with other adored Nintendo franchises such as the well-received gameplay of The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, because of the wider audience he reaches.
It’s kind of difficult with Mario because some of the more important conventions of Mario are based on the approachability and accessibility of those [Zelda] games.
But, with new people joining the Nintendo development team all the time, Miyamoto says that getting a fresh perspective on the series may help to introduce new. exciting changes through the presence of “fresh eyes.”
Regardless of when it is we see a new Mario title released, you can pretty much guarantee that he’ll show up in some form on the Nintendo NX, which launches in March next year.
