It’s commonly believed that Nintendo’s Animal Crossing is one of the best casual gaming franchises of all time, inspiring a number of important, best-selling games in the so-called ‘cozy’ genre. There seems to have been a boom in low-stakes games built around satisfying and repetitive tasks in recent years, and although Animal Crossing is still going strong, with New Horizons arguably being the series’ most popular release, Nintendo may want to double down on the cozy genre by bringing Mario into the mix.