Everyone’s favorite plumber is back, this time in a world so fresh and new you might feel like Mario has been plunged into another franchise.
Nintendo debuted a trailer for the upcoming Super Mario Odyssey during its E3 presentation, immediately surprising viewers with an unusual sight: a dinosaur. The towering Tyrannosaurus thunders past as the trailer starts, revealing a tiny red hat atop its head.
The trailer later unveils why it’s there: You can play as the dinosaur. Hurling Mario’s hat, Cappy, at just about anything allows the player to interact in different ways. The mystifying powers of Cappy stretch beyond organic beings as well.
Breaking from a more traditional Mario style, this game will venture far beyond the Mushroom Kingdom and out into the wider world. The trailer teases at a number of these worlds, including a desert landscape, a beautiful oasis scattered with dinosaurs and dino bones, and a cityscape of towering buildings and busy streets traversed by normal-sized people (with normal-sized noses). You can travel between these and other worlds using Mario’s hat-shaped ship, The Odyssey.
Nintendo revisited Super Mario Odyssey during a Nintendo Treehouse video following its presentation. The game’s producer, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and it’s director, Kenta Motokura, talked about what we can expect from the franchise’s newest installment.
Koizumi explained, after gleefully observing the palpable excitement for the game, what their goals were in making it.
“Giving people something that’s familiar, that’s attractive, that’s really cute from the Mario series,” Koizumi said via a translator. “And bounc[ing] people back and forth between the familiar and the surprising.” Those surprises, according to Motokura, have a lot to do with the power moves.
Power moves are mostly centered around throwing Mario’s cap. The capture mechanic not only lets you take over other characters, but also allows creative moves like traveling via electrical wires or rockets. The player can even take over a tank, or—remember this from earlier?—a dinosaur. This capture option, according to the creators, was just one of many gameplay possibilities discussed, but after a few days of work they realized they wanted it to be at the core of the game.
This looks to have been a good call on the creators part if they want player exploring all corners of the game looking hidden surprises. Cappy’s powers do not begin and end with capture either; players can use their companion hat to buffet foes from their paths or collect coins.
If you want to see more of this gameplay, check out the trailer below. Super Mario Odyssey is scheduled to arrive on Oct. 27.