Good news: according to the latest rumors, we may be getting Princess Peach as a playable character in a mainline Mario game again! And for the first time in a very long while to boot. Bad news: is it unfortunately still just a rumor. At least, for now.

The Return of Princess Peach?

Princess Peach from "Super Princess Peach" looking quite happy.
Well, someone sure is happy about this rumor, and rightfully so.

Unfortunately, none of it is official information from Nintendo. Instead, it all appears to be rumors coming from a blogger who goes by the handle of Zippo. Apparently, this Zippo character is a gaming insider, and he has some rumors for us about this new game.

According to Zippo’s latest post about this 2D mainline Mario game: your playable characters in this game are going to be Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Princess Peach. The lattermost option is the important part. Because if it’s true, then this will be the first mainline Mario game to have Peach as a playable character in 34 years. The last time that happened was in Super Mario Bros. 2 back in 1988. In fact, if you look at the roster of playable characters, then you might notice a lot of similarities with that game. Super Mario Bros. 2 had the exact same playable character roster. This seems to suggest that this new 2D mainline Mario game is, in fact, a remake of Super Mario Bros. 2.

We might even be hearing official news from Nintendo about this soon-ish. Zippo mentions that Takashi Tezuka and Hiroyuki Kimura (the producers of this game) have been working for this new 2D mainline Mario game for the past 3 years. Development is apparently either wrapping up or about to. And finally, all this means that we’ll apparently get a release window for this game sometime in the 2023/2024 fiscal year. So if Nintendo releases anything official about this game, then we should get it next year.

Unfortunately, this also means that Zippo’s revelations about this new 2D mainline Mario game (and of course, Princess Peach’s presence in it) are indeed all rumors for now. With absolutely no official word from Nintendo to corroborate it yet. So take these rumors with a grain of salt for now until we hear anything official from Nintendo. Tune back into THS later to find that out when we do.

Source: Zippo