Three months after launch, Super Mario Maker 2 gets online play with friends

Versus and co-op

When we all found out that Super Mario Maker 2 wouldn’t support direct online play with friends, we kind of had a collective headshake. This is 2019, Nintendo is charging money for online services now, shouldn’t this be a given when much smaller studios can figure it out?

It was such a big deal that the game’s producer had to publicly address the issue during a playthrough at E3, and even went as far as to confirm that eventually, there would be an update that added that functionality into the game. That time is now, as Nintendo stealth-dropped version 1.1.0 of Super Mario Maker 2 last night. In addition to sprucing up the leaderboards section and adding touch-screen plus button building (at the same time) support for handheld mode (which is kind of a big deal, especially given that the portable-only Switch Lite is now in play), 1.1.0 also adds online into the mix.

It’s of the co-op and versus variety for global play and folks on your friends list/players that are nearby. Between this and the addition of an “Official Makers” (read: first party) curated list, I’ll be hopping back into Mario Maker 2 after a hiatus: these are by far the things that were holding me back the most. You can find the full patch notes here or below.

Nintendo of America [Twitter]

Ver. 1.1.0 (Released October 1, 2019)

Course World

Network Play

• Added “Play with friends”
  • You can now play online with friends in either Multiplayer Versus or Multiplayer Co-op modes.
  • You can now select courses uploaded to Course World as well as courses saved to Coursebot.
  • The Nintendo Switch Online mobile app is now supported.
    • You can automatically match online with people that you were matched with via the app, and can voice chat with them.
• Added features to “Nearby Play”
  • You can now play in Multiplayer Co-op mode as well as Multiplayer Versus mode.
  • You can now select courses uploaded to Course World as well as courses saved to Coursebot.
  • When playing a course saved to Coursebot, the host system doesn’t need to be connected to the internet.
• Added “LAN Play”
  • Players connected to the same LAN (Local Area Network) can now wirelessly play together.
  • fter selecting Network Play, you can switch to LAN Play mode by clicking in the L Stick and pressing the L or R buttons.
• If the connection is unstable before Multiplayer Co-op or Multiplayer Versus starts, the match will be cancelled.
• In Multiplayer Co-op, when everyone chooses “Let’s start over!”, the timer will now be reset.
• Changed the look of the gauge for S+, the highest rank in Multiplayer Versus.
• If a player places Builder Boxes after a warp point, other players will now be able to break them and proceed forward.
• All players will take the same amount of time to move through a Warp Pipe, regardless of the state of their character.
• After updating to Ver. 1.1.0, you will no longer be able to match with players using Ver. 1.0.1 or lower in Network Play.

Course Info

• You can now select Play Together directly from any course uploaded to a player’s profile.
• Simplified the display of comments containing stamps in “View comments.”

Maker Profile

• Added a refresh/update button to “Courses uploaded.”
• Added a list showing a user’s 100 most recent First Clears.
• Now displays a user’s total number of First Clears.
• Now displays a user’s total number of world-record times.

Official Makers

• Added a list of Official Makers in Leaderboards.

Course Maker

• You can now use touch with button controls in handheld mode.
  • You can also go back to touch-only controls from Settings in the Main Menu.

General

• You can now play with a horizontal Joy-Con in all Game Modes.
  • You can change your controller grip from Settings in the Main Menu.
• Other issues have been fixed to make for a more pleasant gaming experience.