Hasbro’s celebration of Super Mario hints towards the ongoing rumor of a 3D anniversary collection. Rumors of old 3D Mario games making their way to the Switch for the 35th anniversary have been ongoing for a good chunk of this year.
The rumors started in late March, where there was a supposed leak of remasters of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy. These leaks came from various sources, such as Eurogamer, VGC, and Gematsu. Just a few days ago, fans also discovered a Nintendo Twitter account titled ‘supermario35th’. There was also a Best Buy retail leak of Super Mario 3D World for the Nintendo Switch. The number of bread crumbs that have been placed at this point makes the announcement seem inevitable.
These new Hasbro Mario games further contribute to this strong rumor. Listings from Amazon have cropped up of both Mario Jenga and Mario Monopoly. The Mario Jenga game has the Mario cast climb up a tower of blocks in order to defeat Bowser. Meanwhile, the Mario Monopoly is listed specifically as the “Celebration Edition” of the game, with all different versions of Mario displayed on the box cover. From the classic 8-bit Mario, to Super Mario 64 Mario, to Super Mario Sunshine Mario with F.L.U.D.D., to Super Mario Galaxy, to Super Mario 3D World Mario in the catsuit, to Super Mario Odyssey Mario. All of the iconic versions of the plumber are there, making it clear that this game is meant to be a celebration of the character’s history.
These listings also come just a few days before the rumored Nintendo Direct for July 20th. While these listings can be seen as a coincidence to the supposed direct, if a Direct is happening at all, it does at least open up the possibility that Nintendo will announce their plans for Super Mario’s 35th anniversary on that day. Nintendo has kept quiet so far on what celebrations are planned for Mario, if at all, so this would be a perfect opportunity to make that clear. Earlier this year, there were rumors of a new mainline Paper Mario and Metroid game coming to the Nintendo Switch, and part of that rumor did turn out to be true.
If Nintendo did announce plans to remaster all of the classic 3D Mario games and bring them to Switch, it would be hard to not see that as a perfect celebration of the character’s 35-year legacy. Fans would love to once again play the critically-acclaimed platformers on a modern Nintendo console. In the meantime, fans can enjoy these Super Mario Hasbro games when they get released on August 1st of this year.
