Paper Mario: The Origami King release date, trailer and gameplay

paper mario origami king
(Image credit: Nintendo)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Paper Mario: The Origami King won a "highly recommended" honor for best Switch game at the Tom's Guide Awards 2021 for gaming.

Paper Mario: The Origami King represents Paper Mario’s first outing on the Nintendo Switch, as well as the first game in the series in four years. The Origami King brings back some of the RPG elements that fans loved about earlier Paper Mario games, while maintaining the colorful, cartoonish art style that’s been the franchise’s hallmark since day one.

If you’re eager to play the game, you can order it right now. Read on to find out everything we know about the game, including its release date, its premise and how you can pick up a copy yourself.

Paper Mario: The Origami King how to order

paper mario origami king

(Image credit: Nintendo)

Where can you order Paper Mario: The Origami King? Amazon has a page; Best Buy has a page; GameStop has a page; anywhere else that stocks big-release video games probably has a page.

If you prefer to download games, you can also order the game through the Nintendo eShop.

Paper Mario: The Origami King release date

paper mario origami king

(Image credit: Nintendo)

Paper Mario: The Origami King came out on July 17.

Paper Mario: The Origami King trailer

Nintendo released a trailer for Paper Mario: The Origami King on May 14. You can watch the whole thing below:

The trailer begins with an origami Princess Peach exhorting Mario to “crease yourself, and be reborn,” and only gets weirder from there. Mario does battle with a variety of papercraft foes, including ones that can fold and refold themselves on the fly to become totally different creatures. It looks like the world will feature some big, explorable areas, as well as a lot of dialogue from both new and recurring Mario characters.

One interesting thing about the trailer is the very end, in which Mario dons a Samus Aran helmet and punches at invisible enemies. This could just be a joke for Nintendo fans, although it could also be a hint that Nintendo is finally ready to announce another Metroid title. We’ll know for sure within the next few months.

Paper Mario: The Origami King gameplay

paper mario origami king

(Image credit: Nintendo)

While Paper Mario has been around since 1999, fans generally liked the early games more than the later ones. That’s because as the series progressed, it introduced more and more action elements, and sidelined some of the strategic RPG elements that helped define the series. Paper Mario: The Origami King looks like it will be returning to the franchise’s roots, with turn-based battles that still require some real-time button presses to beat.

in this game, Mario is be able to partner up with a party member and perform special attacks against whole rows of enemies. He's also able to hop into vehicles and explore freeform sections of the world, which is a break from some of the more linear levels in earlier games.

Marshall Honorof

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi. 

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