Lee Crocker, who worked on all games in the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series, took to Twitter and recently confirmed the same, claiming that the series was “finished”. Speaking to Eurogamer, Crocker revealed that the reason for the series’ demise was that the International Olympics Committee had ended its partnership with Sega and Nintendo in order to pursue new deals focused on esports and NFTs.

“They wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and esports,” Crocker said. “Basically the IOC wanted to bring [it] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money.”

The Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series has seen half a dozen instalments over the course of nearly two decades, two of which were for the Winter games in 2010 and 2014, with the rest coinciding with the general Olympics. The series has enjoyed consistent success over the years, especially where sales are concerned, so to see it coming to an end is bound to be a shock to many fans. 

Doctor – Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario seems innocent enough from a gameplay perspective. Simply match the coloured capsules and defeat the viruses. From an ethical perspective though, it’s unbelievable. You have Mario, who clearly has no doctor’s license, simply feeding pills of any kind in the hope that something, anything will kill the viruses. It’s like a twisted game to him…which would explain a lot.