Splatoon was nearly a Mario game

Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto said the firm almost turned Splatoon into a Mario game.

Splatoon was announced at E3. It is a co-op shooter where players fire ink and turn into a squid to dart around the arena. We found it a lot of fun.

The game is a completely new brand for Nintendo and the first major new IP for quite a while. But it was almost part of the Mario cannon, Miyamoto told Edge magazine.

There were heated debates over who the main character should be [in Splatoon],” said Miyamoto.

Whether it should be Mario, or the squid. When we talked about the possibility of it being Mario, of course we could think of the advantages: anybody would be willing to touch it as soon as we announced that we had a new Mario game. But at the same time, we had some worries. If it were Mario, we wouldn’t be able to create a new IP.”

Splatoon is set to launch next year.