Nintendo announces Direct show featuring Super Mario Bros. Wonder

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

With the likes of Mortal Kombat 1, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Alan Wake 2, and many others still in the pipeline, 2023 has plenty more major releases for players to look forward to. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is, of course, high on that list as well, and following its recent gameplay blowout via a dedicated Direct presentation, the excitement surrounding the 2D sidescrolling platformer is seemingly mounting.

September may have just started, but the holiday season is already fast approaching, with plenty of eager shoppers looking to find the next great gift for their game-adoring friends or family members.

If the last six months or so of gaming have taught us anything, it’s that the “rivalry” between the three main gaming publishers is still going strong. That might be sad to say or hear, but it’s the truth. Sony sued Microsoft for anti-trust reasons basically, and during those proceedings, neither of them wanted to admit that Nintendo was a “true rival” for them due to the Switch’s price point, of all things. These three have been going at it for a long time, yet Phil Spencer found time to go and play Super Mario Bros Wonder at the recent Nintendo Live event.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder includes chatty flowers which share jokes and useful hints as you pass by — though Nintendo has now confirmed you can put them on mute if you'd prefer.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder will seemingly allow players to mute the strange new Talking Flowers characters, which is good news for those of us who don't want to think about what Goombas taste like.

Many people have Super Mario Bros Wonder on their minds, given that the title just had a significant Nintendo Direct that broke down the various elements of gameplay, plot, and the new kingdom players will be in. As if on cue, the floodgates opened after that, and the team talked about everything to do with the game, including the parts of its development process. For example, the team wasn’t rushed to develop something special early on, as the producer wanted them to make something special. But a question about what Mario’s creator had to say about the game has popped up.

Thank the Gods of Silence; you can mute those talking flowers in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. That damned “onward and upward” that one spews at Mario is locked in a very painful spot in my mind. It’s like having a grain of sand between the folds of brain, slowly aggravating everything around it in small but significant ways.

One of the biggest complaints in the video game community is that certain developers are so driven to get their video game titles out that they’re willing to rush through development. That’s a problem, as it can leave games feeling incomplete, or they can be so rushed that it leaves a ton of bugs and glitches in the title. Nintendo has always been a company that has prioritized a game’s quality over everything else more times than not. That was apparently the case with Super Mario Bros Wonder, as the team wasn’t rushed during the early stages of development.

The director of Super Mario Bros Wonder says Nintendo has to try harder to surprise players these days.

A new Nintendo Switch OLED special edition console is launching in a little over a month, the Japanese company announced today during its dedicated Super Mario Bros. Wonder Direct.

Nintendo has announced the new Mario Red Edition Nintendo Switch OLED console, and it's going to be available on October 6, 2023. Pre-orders are available now through Nintendo directly with a price of $349.99.