Telling some in the early ’90s that Mario and Sonic would eventually co-star in a series of Olympics games would have broken their brains. It turns out that the crossover plans for those games were once intended to extend even further, withPokemon,Dragon Ball, and even characters synonymous withPlayStationandXboxset to join the Mario and Sonic cast in what would ultimately become the final installment in the series.
That’s according toLee Cocker(thanks,Screen Rant), a developer on theMario & Sonic at the Olympic Gamesseries. Cocker was asked why the team decided to stop at just Mario and Sonic, to which the dev replied there were a lot of ideas in the works, but the licensing deals for a lot of them didn’t work out, so they scaled it back to Mario and Sonic, with their supporting casts, being the focus.
You might be thinking cool, that probably meant otherNintendocharacters like Link and Samus rocking up to the games to try their hand at the javelin or fencing. Imagine how good Kirby would be at the high jump. That’s partially accurate as yes, when asked a follow-up question, Cocker confirmed that characters from other Nintendo properties, includingThe Legend of Zelda, were planned for Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games once upon a time.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was going to include a lot more crossover characters
Pokemon, Dragon Ball, and maybe even characters from other platforms
However, the list of IPs that were supposed to join them extends beyond Nintendo alone. Cocker even suggests that the Olympics roster could have built even longer crossover bridges thanSuper Smash Bros. Pokemon,Street Fighter, andMetal Gear Solid, but also Dragon Ball and even mention of characters owned by Sony and Microsoft, so presumably PlayStation and Xbox characters who have, and likely will, never find their way into Super Smash Bros.
It seems the Mario & Sonic team’s ambitions were too lofty and that, once the licensing deals for these characters started to fall through, the decision to stick with the plumber/hedgehog combo was made. It’s also unclear when exactly in the series this all happened, or if there were numerous attempts to expand its horizons with each installment.
Cocker also reconfirmed that, for now at least, the Mario & Sonic at the Olympics series is dead.Cocker was the one who confirmed our assumptions last yearwhen there was no tie-in game for the Paris games, marking the first time since the series began in 2008 that there wasn’t a game released alongside the real-life Olympics. Cocker revealed the IOC had decided to explore the esports game route instead.
