When you think of a video game character that seems to have done it all, you think of everyone’s favorite plumber in red: Mario. For more than 30 years, Mario has been the character that has gone well beyond his platforming games and has jumped into other genres all the time. Whether he’s playing sports, racing with friends, or even competing in dance battles, Mario has quite the widespread resume of games under his name. Even just last year, we saw a Mario game where he and his pals were using guns and strategical tactics with Rabbids in Kingdom Battle. We can go even further and point out how Mario has had a dating sim reference in Super Paper Mario, a shooting game with Yoshi’s Safari and even a bit of a nod to the Souls series too with a particular boss in Mario Odyssey.

For as crazy as it is to consider what kinds of games Mario has done, one question remains: Has Mario done everything the gaming world has to offer? The answer, of course, is no. While you can point to any genre and find some Mario reference to it, he has yet to reach the full scope of what gaming has to offer. As such, I thought it would be fun to explore those genres untouched by Mario and imagine the possibilities. While I will cover different genres, one I won’t cover will be the “Hack and Slash.” If you wish to read my pitch for “Mario Warriors” be sure to check out my other editorial talking about The Next Possible Nintendo IP to get the Warriors Treatment. So what fun ideas can we come up with to have Mario do? Let’s find out!

Funny how you can almost spell MOBA with Mario.

So while I’m not going to talk about the “Hack and Slash” genre again, we can go with a genre that does have people’s attention nowadays: The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. A Genre that has covered plenty of popular IPs like Lord of the Rings, the Blizzard Games and DC Comics (before its cancellation). In the case of Mario, it would be entirely possible to set up a special MOBA-Type game where you can have the wide selection of Mario’s cast charge at each other while you can have the minions something like Toads vs Goombas.

Of course, much like in my other article, you could also make a case of how Nintendo could consider taking a page out of Heroes of the Storm and “Smashify” the genre with all their IPs in a MOBA. It can be entirely possible and would make for an interesting experience to also have Nintendo characters going after each other on the battlefield. There is even an article on Red Bull, that tried to pitch this idea of a Nintendo MOBA. Plenty of options available, but it will be hard to say if Nintendo would consider doing such a thing in the future.

Can you be a plumber without actually plumbing?

While we always refer to Mario as a Plumber (or as a Carpenter in Jumpman), it is strange how we never really seen him doing his profession. It’s especially ironic considering that we’ve seen Mario as not just an athlete, but as a Doctor, a Baker, an Archaeologist, and several other professions. It has gotten to such a point where it has even been questioned if Mario even is a plumber anymore when Nintendo updated Mario’s profile to say that he worked as a plumber a long time ago. As such, one fun idea we can do is if Mario managed his own business. And we can call it, Hotel Mario!

It could be interesting to approach a game where Mario and Luigi suddenly inherited a heavy amount of coins and decided to open a small business for themselves in between the times Peach gets captured. The idea of having a business like a hotel would be fascinating since you can allow Mario to build a business from the ground up while also giving him the chance to perhaps perform maintenance mini-games to fix problems or upgrade the building. It wouldn’t be anything that would have people rushing to pay the big bucks on, but it can certainly be a fun small game to see if you have what it takes for business management.

Mario-vania!

Considering the kinds of games Mario has been in, they all do revolve around him visiting various locations around the kingdom. While it is great to see how vast the world can be, we never really have seen something where Mario is at one fixed location and stays there for the entire time. It is with this in mind that I look towards the genre, “Metroidvania” and realize what could be done there. Whether if you have Mario running around Bowser’s Castle, or have him trapped somewhere and needs to escape, it can be fun to watch Mario navigate his way through a whole world and see where it takes him.

You could argue that Mario in Metroid wouldn’t really change the formula much, but there would be differences between how Samus navigates stages and how Mario would conduct himself. Perhaps you can allow Mario the ability to tap into his abilities at any time so that even if he does take a hit, he can still use them. Allow Mario’s powerups to enable him to traverse to new locations or open up places that he couldn’t go through the first time around. Either way, it would be impressive to see if there was something that could be seen as one gigantic Mario Level that could be its own Mario Game in its own right.

Conclusion:

It will be some time until we see the next Mario game after Mario Odyssey, but I think it is fair to say that we are still ways off before we see the next game that will feature everyone’s favorite plumber. Whether if the next unique Mario game is a Hack and Slash, MOBA, Business Management or whatever, there is still a good number of genres that Mario has yet to do. That is kind of the magic of Mario: he can be in almost anything and it will be amazing. Let’s just keep him as far away as possible from any more educational games.

So what do you guys think about possible Mario games? Is there any kind of genre that you would like to see Mario in? Leave your thoughts down below and stay tuned for Culture of Gaming for more fun possibility threads.

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Also if you expected me to try a pitch an “Adults Only” game for Mario, then shame on you…