 Well we have another rumor coming in off the Nintendo rumor mail and I put something up on my X slash Twitter account the other day where I talked about how I was gonna be changing a little bit about how I'm covering Nintendo rumors and all of that. And a lot of it was just trying to put clarifications on the coverage itself. So today we're covering a rumor about the next 3D Mario game and look it's a pretty exciting rumor with some really amazing details but I wanna make sure that we're framing this correctly. Look all rumors are meant to be viewed with an air of doubt. You're not supposed to believe rumors in general. Despite that I have now created what I'm calling at least tentatively, this is hardly final the rumor believability scale and this is gonna be based on whoever is the source for the rumors. Now today we're talking about Zippo and you know what, here's the scale. Yes as you can see Zippo is in the wishful thinking category. As you can tell that means we probably shouldn't believe anything that Zippo has to say. We should just treat it as a fun conversation point but it is still a rumor because I can't verify what he does or does not know. Also he did tend to get a bunch of stuff correct with Super Mario Bros. Wonder. So does he have a source on Mario? I don't know but we're gonna go ahead and take a look at this stuff just because I think it's fascinating to think about and it does get us talking about the next 3D Mario game. So as you see here, yeah, we have some pretty cool stuff going on. So Zippo says the next 3D Mario game is ready to go which isn't a surprise if the system's coming this year. Chances are the game is done. Anyways it says 2024 is here and after an insanely long six years of waiting I'm now hearing that the next 3D Mario set to launch with Nintendo's brand spanking new console was finished over the holiday season. This is standard Nintendo practice. Many of their big games are done well before a release. I mean, that's pretty typical for them. As was said before, this is EPD Tokyo's first full attempt at an open world game. And the game is said to look absolutely jaw dropping. I can confirm a few other new things as well. Donkey Kong will appear in the game in some form. I'm unsure if he's playable, a boss or an extended cameo of some sort. Given how Mario and Donkey Kong have appeared as a pair and pretty much everything as of late which includes the movie Lego sets, a remake of Mario vs. Donkey Kong and now in theme park promotions it only makes sense to continue that trend. Luigi, Peach, Captain Toad, Pauline, they'll also appear though I'm unsure what roles they'll play in the game. The other much bigger detail is that the game is freaking massive. The game's world is set to be at least four times larger than Odyssey's environments combined. Holy crap. The craziest part, you're gonna be playing this game in nine to 10 months. I don't know if he's telling us what Switch 2 is gonna be there, but take that for what it is. I'm psyched out of my mind here. It won't be too long until Nintendo starts to give details about their next console just way to bit longer. We're almost there more soon. Now look, again, this is the wishful thinking category so I don't necessarily believe wholeheartedly a lot of the stuff he's saying. Some of it's some pretty safe guesses. Oh, Toad, Luigi. Yeah, they're probably playable characters, right? Oh, Pauline. Okay, Pauline's in the game. Pauline was in Odyssey, so sure proved to be a pretty popular addition. Like Donkey Kong being in the game in some form. I would have been more, I kinda wish you would have it with more specific details like playable character or a boss or something. I don't know. Here's what I do know though. 3D Mario has been quote-unquote rumored for the Nintendo Switch 2 really since Andy Robinson said he had heard about it on a podcast he did for Video Game Chronicles. Now, he noted he didn't have enough sources on it to run a real report. That's why we keep calling it a rumor, not a report, but it's still something that somebody who is, if you looked at our chart, in the reliable category, yeah, that lends some credence that maybe we should be thinking that 3D Mario is coming. Then you think about, hey, Mario Odyssey came out in 2017. Like, boy, that was a long time ago. It's pretty realistic to just expect a new 3D Mario, really any day now, any time now, any year now at this point. So, yes, I am suspecting we're gonna get a 3D Mario probably launching this new system. And look, the idea of it being open world has been floated out there for a long time and it makes a lot of sense. If you think about, obviously, the popularity of open world games, you look at the fact that Mario itself has always been sort of an open zone game. So it's not a huge leap to go from open zones into open world, right? It's not a massive leap to do that. And on top of that, they experimented with open world with Bowser's Fury. Now, again, this doesn't mean they're gonna go with an open world. They could stick with the open zone concept. It's not as if many people think the open zone concept is broken, but it could create a more connected world, could make things even crazier. Imagine traveling to a point where you somehow get to the end of the game before you were supposed to. I think that's kind of fascinating. I did something that I really enjoyed in games like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but obviously, maybe the game won't let you beat it unless you complete certain tasks. That's a whole different thing. I don't know, I'm just really excited for this next 3D Mario game, whatever it ends up being. Now, the one thing he brought up, and again, remember, wishful thinking, four times larger than the totality of all of the areas in Mario Odyssey combined. The Mario Odyssey was a big game, and the areas within it were also really big. And when you combine all those areas together, you could obviously see a world building out, right? You could see this giant world in front of you. And now, imagining that it's something four times larger than that, I'm not even sure I can wrap my mind around it. I'm not saying that Mario is like the biggest game ever. I've played, look, go play World of Warcraft and look how much land and how much there is in that game. Clearly, I've played in worlds that are significantly bigger than anything Zelda or Mario or any Nintendo game has given us. But for me, for a Mario game, it's so hard to imagine a world that big, like what would be the point, you know, of the Mario world being that big unless there's just some really cool fast travel mechanics. And that could be an excuse to have the world be so big. I don't know what those fast travel mechanics would be, whether it's warping, whether it's star riding like Kirby style, whether we get to ride on trains or something else, I don't know. But obviously it is something to consider that if the world is that big, there would have to be a fast travel mechanic of some kind. Otherwise it could be a bit tedious to get around it. And then if the world is that big, and this is maybe the strangest concern I would have, but also I think a realistic one, if the world is four times as big as Mario Odyssey, which felt pretty packed with content, can they really fill a world that big with enough interesting and varied content to keep the player engaged? Remember Mario's all about the gameplay. It's not necessarily about exploration, right? Mario's not a game like Zelda where you could have a wide swath field that has nothing in it but a few rocks here and there, and you could feel satisfied. Zelda is that kind of game because of its open exploration. Mario's more about interaction and gameplay almost at a nonstop pace. So could they fill a world that large with enough interesting things going on? Obviously, I think Nintendo has the talent and the capability and if they've been working on this game since 2017, then they put seven years of development into the ham thing. So clearly, we're getting almost up to grand theft auto levels of development time. So yes, they could do it, but will they do it? They find it necessary? Do they think they're going to get significantly more sales if they brought it to open world? Remember, Mario Odyssey is the most popular in terms of sales, like the best selling 3D Mario game ever and it's not even close. Do they think to get it to another level, maybe they wanna aim to get it to, I don't know, let's say Mario Kart levels of 60 million, then they think going open world and just making this never ending Mario experience is the way to go? I don't know, because when I hear about a world four times as large, I keep thinking this feels like a never ending Mario game. I'm not sure that that's what I want from Mario, but also I'm willing to give it a chance if that's the case. And again, the believability scale lets you know, probably shouldn't put too much stock into this, but it is really fun to talk about. And what I wanna know are what are your thoughts on the size of the world? Like if they go open world, then that's setting this aside. How big of a world do you think it really needs and what kind of content and variability in that world would you like to see? Thank you so much for being here. I am Nathaniel Rovelljance from Nintendo Prime and we'll catch you guys in the next video.