New Mario voice actor won’t be revealed until Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s release, Nintendo president confirms
It's-a mystery, Mario
We may have heard Mario and Luigi’s new voices in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but Nintendo will not be confirming who is voicing them until the game’s release, according to Nintendo president Doug Bowser.
Last month, it was announced that Charles Martinet, who has been the voice of Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, and more iconic Mario series characters for decades, will no longer be voicing any Nintendo characters going forward. Instead, he will be taking on the role of ‘Mario Ambassador’, and if you’re wondering what that means, you’re not alone - Martinet recently admitted he doesn’t know yet, himself.
Nintendo previously confirmed that the change in voice actor is going to come into effect very soon, as Martinet is “not involved” with the upcoming Nintendo Switch game, Super Mario Bros. Wonder. In an interview with IGN at Nintendo Live in Seattle, Washington, Bowser (the president, not King Koopa) spoke about Martinet’s change in role, but also confirmed that there are currently no plans to reveal the identity of the new voice actor before the information is unveiled via Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s credits.
“I think people have recognized this when they see Super Mario Bros. Wonder, they'll hear a different voice and we'll let that play out and that'll be within the credits, and people will learn who the new person is at that point in time, but we don't plan to make any announcement in advance of that,” he said.
Interestingly, this does seem to imply that one individual will be voicing both Mario and Luigi, much like how Martinet did up to this point. It’s not clear if this same person will also fill in for the rest of Martinet’s former roles such as Wario and Waluigi, however.
If you’re looking for some new Nintendo Switch games to play right now, be sure to take a look at our recommendations for the best Nintendo Switch games. You can also check out what other games are around the corner with our roundup of upcoming games.
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Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.