Nintendo will give Princess Peach a starring role in her own Nintendo Switch game next year, the company announced at Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct. It’s the first Princess Peach-led game in more than 17 years, and only the third title led by her royal highness.
Game designer Yoshiaki Koizumi and Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa showed only a brief glimpse of Peach’s untitled Switch game, which appears to be themed as a stage play. Peach will be joined by an unknown character, a small star-like creature that can seemingly transform into a ribbon with its own suite of abilities. Peach’s partner can attack enemies or transform stage props with its powers — and can apparently transform Peach herself. “When she steps on this particular spot on stage,” Furukawa says of her mysterious transformation, followed by Koizumi asking, “Whoa! What is happening?” in their teaser reveal of the game.
The Princess Peach game for Nintendo Switch, which is the game’s placeholder title, shows Peach moving across a world inspired by theater, with spotlights focusing on her and what appear to be enemy characters dressed up in costumes.
Image: Nintendo
Peach’s previous starring role came in 2005, with the Nintendo DS game Super Princess Peach. That game sent Peach on a mission to rescue Mario and Luigi, who had been kidnapped by Bowser, flipping the damsel-in-distress structure of most Super Mario Bros. games. While the role reversal of Peach and the Mario Bros. was a welcome change in direction, critics pointed out “weird sexist undercurrents in the game design.” Super Princess Peach was knocked for being “rather sexist about the idea that Princess Peach’s big secret weapon is that she can get really overly emotional at the drop of a hat.”
Prior to Super Princess Peach, the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom previously starred in only one other game: Princess Toadstool’s Castle Run, an LCD game-watch title released in 1990 as part of a promotion with McDonald’s.
Peach appears in a co-starring role in Nintendo and Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, battling Bowser and his minions alongside Mario, Toad(s), Luigi, and the forces of Kong. Peach will also be playable in the new 2D side-scrolling Super Mario game for Switch, Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
