With the recent release of WarioWare: Gold Nintendo has shown that they still have a soft space in their hearts for their gassiest of characters, but there was a time where Wario was known for things entirely unrelated to micro-games and denim jackets. A time when picking up a game with his big ‘ol mug on the cover meant you were about to embark on a platforming adventure unlike any other – a time when Wario rivaled his rival for sheer quality in the 2D platformer space. The Wario Land series, once considered one of the most consistent titles in Nintendo’s lineup in terms of sheer quality seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth, with no new games releasing in over a decade which begs the question – what happened to the Wario Land series and will we ever see it make a comeback?

Wario made his worldwide debut as the main antagonist of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins but even though Mario would ruin his dastardly plans in that adventure Wario would end up taking the day as he played the starring role in its sequel / spin-off – Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. The Mario Land series properly usurped, Wario began establishing his games has vastly different experiences than what 2D platforming players were used to at the time. Instead of simply needing to clear a stage, here you had to collect all the treasures within a level and, once completed, make a mad-dash for the exit before time expires, essentially making every level feel like a variant of the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This novel approach to the genre was paired with the fact that Wario couldn’t be ‘defeated’ in the same was Mario with hits from enemies and hazards taking away from your treasure haul instead of your life counter.

The innovative approach to gameplay didn’t stop there as Wario took another page from Mario’s playbook and made power-ups a big part of this repertoire but instead of simply picking up an item to boos his abilities Wario would also steal borrow an idea from the Kirby series and user enemy’s powers against them in the form of various hats. These hats could give Wario a bunch of different abilities such as breathing fire, turning into a bat or become even bigger to crush through stones. All of this came together perfect to deliver a series of games that was completely different from anything else out on the market even though many of the core ideas seems to have been cobbled together from other titles.

The series would continue on being a hit for Nintendo. Virtual Boy: Wario Land would be the next to release and would end up being ranked as that system’s best game in terms of overall quality and both Wario Land II and Wario Land 3 would be big hits on the Game Boy Color. Wario Land 4 would then launch in the first months of the Game Boy Advance’s life and went on to not only sell extremely well on a system with many other great games but also reached critical acclaim earning an 88% on Metacritic. The future seemed bright for the series but things would soon change rather dramatically for the franchise as Nintendo decided to take it in a whole new direction.

In 2003 Nintendo and Intelligent Systems unleashed WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! for the Game Boy Advance and the title was a revolution to the mini-game genre. Instead of focusing on more focused, long-haul experiences the game threw a series of fast-paced, five second long micro-games at the player forcing them to react quickly in order to make it through a stage. The gameplay was solid and the idea was unique and so the game was a hit, spawning sequel after sequel and cementing itself as the ‘main’ Wario series going forward. Even the Super Smash Bros. series, titles that always pay extra attention to a character’s history promote Wario’s ‘Ware’ look over his ‘Land’ one.

Over on the ‘Land’ side of things Nintendo had not yet completely abandoned the series but it taken on a much more experimental tone. In 2003 Wario World was released for the Nintendo GameCube to a tepid response and lukewarm sales marking the series’ only 3D title. In 2007 development of another spin-off game was handed over to Suzak (developer of various smaller Japanese titles) and the resulting game – Wario: Master of Disguise was poorly received by critics and gamers alike, feeling more like a rushed, stripped down and poorly planned-out version of older Wario Land games. The final hurrah would come the next year when Nintendo and Good-Feel teamed up to release Wario Land: Shake It! on the Wii, to this day, the final game in the series. The game released to mostly positive reviews with many praising its return to form gameplay and the gorgeous hand-drawn graphics however it was a flop at retail, selling 1.15 million copies on a system where Nintendo platformers where constantly smash hits (New Super Mario Bros. Wii moved 28.50 million copies).

Since then, Wario related games have been solely based in the WarioWare series with his only other appearances being as part of the Mario Sports and Mario Party series. However, the character remains a popular one for Nintendo and the Virtual Console re-releases of the classic Wario Land games on the 3DS and Wii U were all well received and Nintendo even re-released Wario Land: Shake It! on the Wii U Virtual Console giving a whole new generation of players a chance to play as the garlic loving gas-bag. Of course with no new Wario game announced to be in development and the developer of the most recent title being busy with the new Yoshi game for the Nintendo Switch it might be a while yet before we get a new game in the series.

Will we ever see a new game in the Wario Land series? Only the folks working deep within Nintendo’s walls know the answer for sure but I surely hope we have not seen the last of his greedy quests for loot. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the WarioWare series but there’s something about Wario’s brand of platforming that is too fun to pass up on and I think it fits nicely into Nintendo’s lineup when compared to their other platforming series like Mario, Donkey Kong Country and Kirby. Switch owners have even shown to have a big appetite for retro-inspired content so maybe, after 10 years, the time is finally right for Wario to squeeze into those purple overalls and head out on another treasure hunting adventure.