We won’t have to wait much longer until Super Mario Run arrives on the iPhone and iPad, but playing it comes with a catch, especially for those who looked forward to booting up the game on a subway or airplane.
The game requires an active internet connection, which means you’ll have to be on Wi-Fi or mobile data in order to play it.
Super Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who also produced Super Mario Run, confirmed that the game will only be available when connected online in an interview with Mashable, and from the sounds of it that probably won’t change anytime soon.
“For us, we view our software as being a very important asset for us,” Miyamoto told Mashable. “And also for consumers who are purchasing the game, we want to make sure that we’re able to offer it to them in a way that the software is secure, and that they’re able to play it in a stable environment.
Miyamoto emphasized the importance of keeping the game’s software secure as it launches in 150 countries, which was in part why the game is launching for iOS first, emphasizing that when he talks about the game’s “security element” he means “risk of privacy.”
Although Nintendo had tried to make part of the game available offline, it ultimately wasn’t able to make it work.
“We had thought at one point that it would be nice to have the World Tour [story] mode available standalone, to be able to play without that connection,” he added. “But then the challenge is when that’s operating in a standalone mode, it actually complicates the connection back to the Toad Rally and Kingdom modes. And because those two modes are relying on the network save, we had to integrate the World Tour mode as well.”
Super Mario Run launches on the iPhone and iPad Dec. 15.
H/T the Verge