Nintendo just finished celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. franchise that led to a number of releases associated with the series over the last year. This included not only games, but things like LEGO sets and more. The biggest set of announcements related to this celebration came back in early September where Nintendo laid out the anniversary plans for the franchise, but one piece of information that irked a lot of people was that a few things would not be available after March 31. Now that time has arrived, which means today is the death of Mario as some have jokingly called it, but really it’s nowhere near that serious.
One of the announcements we received during that reveal was Super Mario 3D All-Stars for Nintendo Switch, which includes Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy all in one package. Another was a brand new battle royale game in the style of Tetris 99 titled Super Mario Bros. 35. Lastly was a special Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch edition that lets you play the original game on the go in the form of an old school Game & Watch system.
While all of these were announced, they were accompanied with some very strange news. They revealed that Super Mario 3D All-Stars and the Super Mario Bros.: Game & Watch would stop being sold after March 31. This technically means no more products of them will be sent to stores and you can still buy them as long as you can find them in stores. However, Super Mario 3D All-Stars in particular will not be available on the Nintendo eShop anymore after today.
The most troublesome of the bunch though was the brand new Super Mario Bros. 35 that was given for free to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. This game may not as good as it could have been, but it’s still fun regardless. However, the game will be unplayable after today unless Nintendo ever brings it back. This is frustrating for people that really enjoyed the game, as there is really no rhyme or reason to discontinue it other than to make the experience super limited.
It will be interesting to see what Nintendo does moving forward with the games found within Super Mario 3D All-Stars. The best assumption is that the three games will be put on the eShop individually instead, which maybe will lead to us getting Super Mario Galaxy 2 as well hopefully.
You only have a few more hours to grab Super Mario 3D All-Stars digitally or try Super Mario Bros. 35, so make sure not to miss out before it all ends tonight.
