- Pronouns
- He/Him
EPD 8 hired for a 3D action game in (I think) October 2019, and then a 2D action game in August 2020.We got EPD10 accounted for a while ago (Pikmin 4), but 8 and 9 haven't put out any brand new titles in a while.
Who knows when 8 will get their next game out, or what it will be.
The obvious bet for the former is 3D Mario, given that's EPD 8's main responsibility. While EPD 8 produced 3D All Stars and Bowser's Fury, the bulk of the work on both seems to have been outsourced to teams like NST, 1-Up, iQue and NERD.
Entirely possible new mainline Mario is ready in 2023 - a few months after the movie - by happy accident. Development for one of the games may well result in a release in 2023 without it having been the original plan to release the movie then a game.It seems highly unlikely that Nintendo has a Mario game ready to for the movie, but I suppose it's possible. Nintendo knows well how awful it is trying to attach a video game to a media release calendar, they've been involved in Pokemon for years, and I doubt they want that to happen to Mario. Video game tie-ins to movies are almost always bad and almost always driven by the movie release schedule and that doesn't match Nintendo.
But maybe a remaster? NSMB Wii is 2D, couch co-op, strong casual vibes, and if you played it in college you're probably a parent now with a Mario Movie aged kid.
We're a little over three years on from the last 2D Mario, as well as just over three years on from the EPD 8 and EPD 10 hiring calls for a 3D game and a 2D game. We're also 2 years on from the 3D All Stars and 3D World releases, so it's not as if Nintendo would be crowding the market; especially not if we're looking at Mario in the second half of 2023.