Over the last few years, live-service games have become a staple of the video game world. While DLCs and big expansion packs have always been around, the concept of a constantly-evolving game, given regular updates every week or so, is something fairly new. With Fortnite popularizing this concept back in 2017, and other publishers discovering just how lucrative this new model can be, more and more live-service games have started appearing over the years, and even the biggest companies are starting to use the model. Nintendo's most recent sports games, and Mario Strikers: Battle League in particular, are examples of where this live-service model doesn't quite meet its promise.
Released just over a month ago, Mario Strikers: Battle League was met with some fairly negative reviews upon launch. While the gameplay itself was fun and frantic, the amount of content within Mario Strikers: Battle League was incredibly shallow, and unfortunately, this title is just the latest in Nintendo's recent line of disappointing sports games, and the worst example of Nintendo's post-launch support.
Mario Strikers: Battle League Is Yet Another Problematic Nintendo Sports Game
The Nintendo Switch is one of the most successful consoles ever made, and after the disappointment that was the Wii U, it breathed new life into Nintendo as a video game manufacturer and publisher. That being said, not all Nintendo Switch games have been made with same level of care and attention, and even the most high-profile first-party titles can disappoint fans on launch. Nintendo's recent sports games are the perfect example of this.
In 2018, Mario Tennis Aces released on the Nintendo Switch. While the gameplay was satisfying and responsive, it added little to the Mario Tennis formula, and actually felt like somewhat of a step-back for the franchise, with fans noticing a significant lack of content in the game. This trend continued with last year's Mario Golf: Super Rush, which again, seemed to lack a lot of the content present in previous entries in the series.
For both of these games, Nintendo promised that more content would be available in the future via free updates. Nintendo was true to its word, and did add a decent amount of content to both games after launch, adding new playable characters, courses, courts, and even new modes. However, while Nintendo did fulfill its promise, the post-launch support for these games ended after less than a year. So, though the final product was certainly a more fleshed-out, worthwhile game, the content that was added felt more like content that should've been in the game since day-one. And by the time Nintendo had updated these games, most of the player-base had dropped off, making these titles seem more like quick cash-grabs than true, high-quality Mario sports titles.
The recently released Mario Strikers: Battle League is the worst example of this issue. Coming out just over a month ago, Mario Strikers: Battle League was lambasted on launch for its severe lack of content. Nintendo was quick to announce that new content was heading to the game soon, but for most early adopters, the damage had already been done. Mario Strikers: Battle League marks the third Nintendo sports game in a row that has severely lacked content on launch, and fans are starting to wise-up to this formula.
Just a week ago, Mario Strikers: Battle League received its first post-launch DLC, adding Daisy, Shy Guy, some new gear, and a new stadium to the game. While the free content is definitely welcome, it does little to bring back players that feel as though they've been burned by the last three Mario sports titles. In order to re-establish faith in the Mario sports franchise, Nintendo needs to ensure that its games have enough content in them to begin with, or this problem will just repeat itself.
Mario Strikers: Battle League is out now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
