The notoriously strict Nintendo gave its developers a bit more freedom than usual when creating Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Producer Takashi Tezuka opened up about the Mario company’s development process during a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
Nintendo is protective of the Mario brand and for good reason. The Italian plumber helped turn the company into the powerhouse it is today, and outside of a few outings, the Mario series has rarely seen a dip in quality. However, many have grown tired of the mechanics and style seen in the New Super Mario Bros. 2D platformer series that featured prominently throughout the 2010s. To combat this, Tezuka challenged developers both new and old to think about the future of Mario instead of simply defending the brand’s past.
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“We really wanted to give the designers more freedom than we would have in the past,” Tezuka said when speaking about the development of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. “And more so than having a lot of people who’ve been making Mario games and working on Mario games for a long time, we had a lot of people who are new to the franchise. [I] said to them, ‘I’m really grateful that you (are) being protective of Mario, but I really want you to think about what Mario needs to be now. What do (you) think Mario needs to be in order to play it the way you want to play Mario.’”
Super Mario Bros. Wonder marks an important moment in the platforming plumber’s history. The upcoming Nintendo Switch title boasts an imaginative art style with a smorgasbord of playable characters and unique mechanics. It’s also set to be the first entry in the series since longtime Mario voice actor Charles Martinet announced that he would be stepping away from the role after almost 30 years. Any way you cut it, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is primed to be a completely new kind of Mario game. You can read more about it here when it launches for Switch on October 20, 2023.
