Super Mario Maker 2

Super Mario Maker 2 brings to Switch an idea that proved on Wii U just how powerful a tool can arise from simple platforming building blocks. The game gives players the full set of tools Nintendo itself used for decades to build Mario platformers – from the classic Super Mario Bros. style through New Super Mario Bros. to 3D World – and lets them design their own levels by dragging blocks, enemies, and mechanisms directly on the touchscreen. Each style doesn't just change the graphics but also the jump physics and enemy behavior, so the same design plays completely differently in a different style.

New compared to the first game is a nighttime palette that changes the rules of individual worlds, water currents, slopes, linked On/Off switches, and above all a full-fledged Story Mode, in which Mario helps rebuild Princess Peach's castle across more than a hundred hand-designed levels from Nintendo itself – these also serve as an excellent showcase of everything the editor can do. The online community aspect remains the heart of the game: players upload their own creations to a global server, rate them with a thumbs up, work through difficulty leaderboards in Endless Challenge mode, and compete in online multiplayer races across community levels.

The editor is remarkably deep and allows creating not just traditional jumping segments but also complex logic puzzles, auto-scrollers, escape rooms, or music sequencers that exploit the game's physics in ways the developers hardly intended. This layer of ingenuity is exactly what made Mario Maker 2 a phenomenon on streaming platforms, where watching desperate attempts to beat extremely difficult kaizo levels became entertainment in its own right. Thanks to its huge and creative community, the game contains effectively endless content that continues to grow to this day, and it has become a favorite tool for speedrunners and creators of custom minigames built purely from Mario's building blocks.