Super Mario Odyssey launched on Nintendo Switch in late 2017, but fans are already eagerly expecting the next iteration of the franchise. Case in point, one of Nintendo of America's recent posts to Twitter have stirred up excitement. The official social media account posted a picture of a high-fidelity Mario eating watermelon with the message,"Even Mario needs a little #Summer vacation! No matter where your summer odyssey took you, we hope it was filled with sunshine!" Fans are going wild reading into the tweet's language.
"Time for a Super Mario Sunshine Remaster then?" "I thought you were announcing another sunshine game," and, "I saw the words 'Mario' and 'Sunshine' where's it at?" are a few examples from the Twitter post's replies. Nintendo fans want to believe that the company could be teasing either a remaster of the classic Nintendo 64 Mario game or a continuation of it that also serves as a sequel to Super Mario Odyssey. There's obviously no substantial reason to believe this, but it's fun to speculate.
The tweet does go out of its way to use language bound to stir up its fans."Odyssey" references the most recently released Mario game. "Sunshine" references the Nintendo 64 classic. And then there's the image. It appears to be a new render of Mario using either the visual quality of Super Mario Odyssey or better. He's even wearing a summer outfit previously unseen. It's no surprise that fans reading the tweet saw more than just a friendly message.
It can likely be said that Nintendo's social media folk meant for the post to be wholly innocent. Mentioning Odyssey and Sunshine was almost certainly done with intent, but was probably just done for fun. The image could also have been done for fun, though it seems like a rather impressively done image for just a tweet. It may have even been repurposed from some other more important use.
Perhaps the more important question is whether it's even possible that Nintendo could be hinting at a new Mario game. Clearly, the fans want one. And clearly, Nintendo has every intent to make more main series Mario games. The will is there, but development of a main series Mario game typically take 3-4 years. With Super Mario Odyssey releasing in 2017, a 2020-2021 sequel is absolutely possible, if not likely. Would Nintendo want to make a Super Mario Sunshine follow-up, though? Fans of the Nintendo 64 game may be waiting a while yet.
Super Mario Odyssey is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.
