Nintendo held its recent Direct presentation during E3 2021. The Japanese gaming company mostly impressed viewers by revealing some long-forgotten franchises, announcing a brand-new entry in the Metroid series, and even showing off new frantic and fun-filled Mario Party content. The Mario Party content in question is titled Mario Party Superstars, and some fans wonder whether the boards and game modes showed are part of Super Mario Party as DLC or if it's its own new game entirely.
Mario Party Superstars doesn't have entirely new game boards, but it takes five boards from the Nintendo 64 era of Mario Party games. The mini-games themselves are taken from the N64 games as well as the GameCube titles. There are over 100 games in total, and online multiplayer works for all game modes at launch, unlike 2018's Super Mario Party, which had full online multiplayer added three years after its initial launch.
Is Mario Party Superstars DLC?
Even though it looked exactly like Super Mario Party in its Nintendo Direct trailer, it turns out that Mario Party Superstars is not DLC for Super Mario Party and will have its own standalone release. The title will cost $60, like other normal-priced Switch titles, and is not connected to Super Mario Party in any way.
These courses taken from the classic Mario Party games will only be available in Mario Party Superstars and can not be purchased as extra content for Super Mario Party. It may be unfortunate for some, as Super Mario Party just received its online update, so fans might've purchased the game recently, assuming that a new game wouldn't be announced this year.
Now that Mario Party Superstars has been revealed, it makes sense why fans didn't get any DLC for Super Mario Party. The development team must have moved on from game to game and didn't have time to create DLC. Mario Party Superstars seems like it has a better backbone than the previous entry did, especially now that every mode works online and players can save progress. It's more likely for this game to get DLC, as Nintendo can take other boards and mini-games and add them as downloadable packs.
Also announced during Nintendo's E3 2021 showcase was the fifth mainline entry of the Metroid series, Metroid Dread. After not having an entirely new game for about 19 years, Samus Aran returns for a new adventure on a mysterious planet.
Mario Party Superstars will launch for the Nintendo Switch on October 29, 2021.