This week's Nintendo Direct held a handful of surprises for gamers, but among the most enticing was the announcement of Mario Strikers: Battle League. It's been a decade and a half since the last title, Mario Strikers Charged, was released for the Nintendo Wii, and while the first two entries into the franchise were generally well-received, they ultimately left fans wanting more. Now that the landscape of online gaming has completely transformed over the last 15 years, Mario Strikers: Battle League is set up to succeed in ways its predecessors never could.
The online gameplay, it appears, will be centered around Strikers Club mode, which allows up to 20 players to form together and attempt to climb the ranking ladder. Though there are a handful of new mechanics in Mario Strikers: Battle League, the decision to bake in a competitive angle to the online mode, sticks out as the most important. Though its predecessors failed to keep players engaged long-term, the online aspect of Mario Strikers: Battle League could be a complete game-changer in that regard.
Mario Strikers: Battle League Has All The Ingredients to Foster a Competitive Scene
Nintendo has been involved in the competitive gaming scene for years with the Super Smash Bros. franchise, and with Mario Strikers: Battle League, it has a chance to cement its place yet again, and for all the same reasons. Mario Strikers: Battle League can, and should, take the blueprint laid out by Super Smash Bros. and run with it. In the same way that Super Smash Bros. has been able to draw fans from more traditional fighters, Mario Strikers: Battle League may be able to entice fans that have grown tired of FIFA's FUT game mode.
Even if Mario Strikers: Battle League can't grow to the same level of popularity as Super Smash Bros.—and as a niche game, it shouldn't expect to—it already has all the variables necessary to foster a competitive scene. The most important is the equipment and items in Mario Strikers: Battle League. While Super Smash Bros. items have traditionally been banned from competitive play, in Mario Strikers: Battle League, customizable options of any fashion should help to form an in-game meta; an important aspect for any online play. If they are disabled in online play, Mario Strikers: Battle League has a big enough roster of characters for players to pick from that it will divide players at even the highest level.
Mario Strikers: Battle League's Online Play Will Keep Players Engaged
Through no fault of their own, the predecessors to Mario Strikers: Battle League failed to keep players interested long after their release. Now, though, with Twitch growing faster than ever, and streaming, in general, being as popular as it is, Mario Strikers: Battle League couldn't have better timing. By virtue of it being a Nintendo title, Mario Strikers: Battle League should be on enough gamer's radars upon launch. Then, if Nintendo commits to the title well after the initial release and keeps adding in new characters, gear, and the like, there's no reason to believe it won't be able to succeed.
While its predecessors were both criticized for a shallow single-player experience, Mario Strikers: Battle League is probably best suited to focus again on multiplayer and online gameplay. While a well-crafted single-player experience will keep players engaged for weeks, a solid online component will keep them around for years. If nothing else, Nintendo must follow the Super Smash Bros. blueprint and introduce new characters at regular intervals, as it entices fans to speculate, as they do for Super Smash Bros. characters, about each subsequent reveal.
Mario Strikers: Battle League releases June 10 on Nintendo Switch.