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Overview
Super Mario Maker 2 is Nintendo's level-creation platformer for Nintendo Switch, developed by Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 10 and released on June 28, 2019. It expands on the original Wii U game with a dedicated Story Mode, deeper course-building tools, and a reworked online infrastructure for sharing and playing community-made stages. The result is one of the most content-rich Mario experiences on the platform.
At its core, the game runs on two pillars: making and playing. Story Mode offers over 100 pre-built courses that task Mario with reconstructing Princess Peach's castle after Undodog accidentally erases it. It's a breezy single-player campaign that doubles as a tutorial for what the Course Maker can produce. Once you've cleared those, the real sandbox opens up.
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Course Maker: how does it work?
Course Maker is where Super Mario Maker 2 earns its name. You build levels by placing tiles, enemies, items, and hazards from a touch-screen palette, then test them immediately. Five game styles are available, each with its own physics engine and visual set:
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- Super Mario Bros.
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Super Mario World
- New Super Mario Bros. U
- Super Mario 3D World
The Super Mario 3D World style is exclusive to this sequel and brings Cat Mario, clear pipes, and on/off switches into the mix. Each style plays differently enough that a course designed for one won't behave the same way if you swap it to another, which keeps experimentation meaningful.
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Multiplayer and social features
Two players can build together on a single Switch by passing a Joy-Con, which makes co-op course creation surprisingly practical for couch sessions. Online multiplayer supports up to four players competing or cooperating through community courses, with a Versus mode that pits players against each other in a race to the flagpole.
The online course-sharing system lets creators upload their levels and receive player feedback through a like system and play-count tracking. Nintendo also curates Official Maker courses that appear in special menus, giving standout community work additional visibility. The World Maker mode, added via a free April 2020 update, lets creators string individual courses into full overworld maps with paths, branching routes, and a final castle.
Content and replayability
Super Mario Maker 2 has accumulated a library of community courses that numbers in the tens of millions, which means the game's replayability is essentially unlimited as long as the Nintendo Switch Online servers remain active. The Endless Challenge mode pulls random community courses and keeps going until you run out of lives, making it the fastest way to burn through a wide variety of player-made content.
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The April 2020 free update added World Maker, Ninji Speedruns (timed Nintendo-created courses with global leaderboards), new course parts including the Frozen Coin and Dash Block, and additional enemies like the Spike and Pokey. That update pushed the total course-part count high enough that even experienced builders regularly find combinations they haven't tried. The game's course-creation tools reward experimentation, and the gap between a beginner's first level and a veteran's precision-platformer is enormous, which keeps the community producing content worth playing.