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Super Mario Maker 2 has no online multiplayer with friends

Super Mario Maker 2's online multiplayer won't allow you to play directly with your friends.

Josh Hawkins

May 28, 2019 9:05 AM

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When we first learned that Super Mario Maker 2 would feature online multiplayer, we were ecstatic. Now, though, it appears this highly sought-after feature comes with some very big caveats, most notably the fact that Super Mario Maker 2 won’t allow you to directly matchmake with your friends. Instead, you’ll be tied directly to playing with randoms unless you’re using the upcoming Mario level creator sim in local play mode.

This is, honestly, a pretty big hit. Here at Shacknews, we’re all pretty big fans of what Super Mario Maker and now Super Mario Maker 2 allow you to do. I was personally really looking forward to facing off against our very own CEO, Asif Khan in various Mario levels. Unfortunately, I guess I’ll have to wait until we meet up at a convention of some sort to make that happen. Speaking of Asif, he recently had a chance to try out Super Mario Maker 2, you can read all about his thoughts in our Super Mario Maker 2 preview, to see exactly what he loved about the new Mario creator sim.

According to Nintendo World Report, Nintendo’s reasoning for the restriction on the online multiplayer portion of the game is tied directly to the global leaderboards. Nintendo believes that the competitive leaderboards would be compromised if you could simply play with your friends. Of course, this does beg the question of why Nintendo doesn't just include a competitive play mode and then a casual play mode, but that’s an argument for a different article. This reasoning is also a bit dead-in-the-water as the no-online with friends even extends to the cooperative mode, which has absolutely no competitive mode or ties to the competitive leaderboards. What’s the excuse for that one?

If you do want to play with your friends, you’ll need to meet up face to face and use the single console local play option, or by linking up to four systems through local wireless. Either way, this is a huge disappointment to anyone who was looking forward to playing against their friends in Super Mario Maker 2 that don’t have the luxury of meeting face to face that often. Hopefully we’ll see a future update that gives us access to direct matchmaking with our friends, but right now there doesn’t appear to be any plans to allow direct play with your friends.

Josh Hawkins

Guides Editor

Joshua holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and has been exploring the world of video games for as long as he can remember. He enjoys everything from large-scale RPGs to small, bite-size indie gems and everything in between.