Paper Mario: The Origami King has been announced today by Nintendo in a surprise reveal, though it was rumored earlier this year.
The Origami King will launch exclusively on Nintendo Switch on July 17 and introduces a host of new features to the series. One of Mario's new abilities, which sounds reminiscent of ARMS' central mechanic is 1000-Fold Arms, which allows players to interact with the landscape by stretching out and "pulling, peeling and revealing new locations, helping you to solve puzzles and uncover unexpected surprises." A new ring-based battle system also arrives with the sequel, the sixth game in the subseries, and changes how the turn-based combat behaves by giving players the tactic of lining up enemies for maximum damage.
In the story, Nintendo teases that there's something rong with Princess Peach this time around, which you'll have noticed if you watched the trailer. On Mario's adventure, he can enlist the help of other characters from the classic franchise, such as King Olly's sister Olivia and even Bowser.
The Origami King follows 2016's Paper Mario: Color Splash on WiiU as the most recent entry in the series. It also served as the final Mario game to release on the failed WiiU, though the game itself did well with critics, averaging a "Strong" 76 on OpenCritic from 67 reviewers.
Though this reveal came with no previous hints from Nintendo, we did first hear word of a new Paper Mario coming in 2020 from a VGC report that said Nintendo also has several Super Mario remaster projects planned for the hero's 35th anniversary. Thus, this reveal seems to lend credence to the already reliable outlet's reporting. Stay tuned, Mario fans.
