Mario Strikers: Battle League features online clubs and free DLC

After a 15-year hiatus, Mario and his friends return to the field for more full-contact soccer-style action. Mario Strikers: Battle LeagueComing to Nintendo Switch on June 10th, Strike’s soccer-like gameplay ramps up with new Super Moves, upgradeable gear, and an online Strikers Club mode that allows players to build and expand a club that’s more or less like in the real world works football.

Mario Strikers: Battle League brings back Mario sports game veterans like Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Toad, Wario, and Waluigi, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. (Nintendo says more characters will be added for free over time, a la Mario tennis aces and Mario Golf: Super Rush.) Players can customize all of the Mushroom Kingdom’s jocks with unlockable gear. Any item that includes protective gear for the head, body, arms, and legs can enhance a character’s attributes, often with some balance trade-offs.

Gear is purchased with in-game coins, which are given out as post-game rewards, and can be worn in all of them Mario Strikers: Battle Leaguegame modes from .

Image: Next Level Games/Nintendo

Nintendo showed off these game modes during a presentation recently viewed by Polygon. These include Quick Battle, a jump-in-and-play option for 1-8 players, online or offline; Cup Battle, a local play option for 1-4 players that includes tournaments against computer-controlled opponents; and Strikers Club Mode, a new online-only feature that allows players to form clubs, compete against others and pool their resources to customize their club.

Nintendo officials say Strikers Club will function similarly to real football clubs, with divisions and seasons in which players will compete for points in hopes of getting promoted to higher divisions (or risking falling to lower divisions ). As part of a club, players can team up with friends and teammates to compete against opposing clubs and earn tokens that can be used to personalize their Striker Club.

Mario Strikers: Battle LeagueThe personalization of the club aims to give players a strong sense of identity. With the tokens earned by a club’s members in the competition, club owners can customize their stadium from field to fence with a theme (e.g. Mushroom Hill, Lava Castle, Jungle Retreat, etc.), add stadium decorations and choose uniforms and logos. These decorative perks are visible to other teams; Multiplayer matches are played in stadiums decorated with both teams’ customizations, sort of a half-and-half home-away mashup of their styles.

Image: Next Level Games/Nintendo

Personality is scattered everywhere Mario Strikers: Battle League, thanks to its colorful cast of (familiar) characters and their Hyper Strike moves. These charged skill shots include Luigi’s ability to summon a giant green tornado onto the field, Bowser setting the strike ball on fire with his flaming breath, and Wario butt-stomping the ball with such force it sends it into transformed into an electrified pinball machine. fight league features some incredibly expressive animations for characters like Peach, Toad, and Waluigi, the latter of which is easy to master most extra in Nintendo’s new soccer game.

Nintendo representatives confirmed this Mario Strikers: Battle League Owners will receive multiple post-launch drops of characters and other unspecified content in free updates. Potential players can also try the game before launch thanks to a lightweight demo version Mario Strikers: Battle League for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. While it sounds like this demo will mainly introduce players to the mechanics of Strike, there are set times when players can compete against each other in online multiplayer.

For the time being, the current overview video from Nintendo for Mario Strikers: Battle League offers plenty of details for Switch owners considering diving in.