Mario games in order: Release and story timeline

It’s-a-him!

By Cole Luke

Published: Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 16:06 PM

We’ll preface this article by saying there are a lot of Mario games, and to make sense of the vaunted series, we have the Mario games in order of release.

We have two separate lists, one for the mainline entries and another that encompasses every game where Mario and his pals have shown up.

Also in this article, we’ll explain the situation with the Mario universe story and timeline, and how important it is to know before triple-jumping head-first into them.

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Some of the games are a bit more difficult to play than others, but we have included a way to purchase each mainline release.

Some can only be played on original hardware, too, but a good chunk of them can be had for the Nintendo Switch – and hopefully the Switch 2 when that releases, if it supports backwards compatibility.

If you aren’t one of the hundreds of millions of Switch owners and the recent Mario movie has piqued your interest, there are great Switch deals to be had, and the Mario games make up some of the best games on the Switch.

There’s plenty to get into down below, so we shan’t delay – read on for a mega Mario marathon!

Which Mario games should you play on Switch?

If you are hopping into the series now, we would recommend you play the mainline Mario games that are available natively on the Nintendo Switch, as these are the easiest to source and play right now.

There isn’t much of an ongoing storyline to worry about, so we’d recommend you simply jump into these key titles at your leisure. The order doesn’t really matter, but this is the sequence in which they came out on Switch:

Of those, we’d particularly recommend Wonder (a brilliant 2D platformer) and Odyssey (an awesome 3D platformer) if you’re looking for a classic-feeling Mario experience with all the modern bells and whistles of the Switch.

If you’re looking to play some older Mario games on Switch, the 3D All-Stars bundle will get you such classics as Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy.

If you want to go even further back through history, check out the Nintendo Switch Online membership that includes golden oldies going all the way back to the original Super Mario Bros from the NES era.

And in terms of spin-offs that are worth your time, we’d heartily recommend Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (now improved with numerous DLC tracks) and the recent remake of Super Mario RPG.

Or, if you’re looking for a fun party game to play in a group, try Mario Party Superstars.