Super Mario Run will be one of the bigger releases this month since it marks Nintendo’s first real mobile Mario title. However, it’s worth noting that for all its single-player features, you’ll need a stable internet connection play it.
This was confirmed by Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Amie when speaking to Mashable. “We view our software as being a very important asset for us. And also for consumers who are purchasing the game, we want to make sure that we’re able to offer it to them in a way that the software is secure, and that they’re able to play it in a stable environment. We wanted to be able to leverage that network connection…in a way that keeps the software secure.”
Fils-Aime then further confirmed that this mechanism was in place to prevent piracy. Even launching the game on iOS first is a part of that and he also discussed why an internet connection was required. “We had thought at one point that it would be nice to have the World Tour [story] mode available standalone, to be able to play without that connection. But then the challenge is when that’s operating in a standalone mode, it actually complicates the connection back to the Toad Rally and Kingdom modes.”
Super Mario Run is out on December 15th for iOS and 2017 for Android.