The word on the street is that Nintendo has an Arwing in the hangar and it’s ready for takeoff.

Of course, rumours are nothing more than, uhh, rumours, until the Big N confirms, but there’s something about the rumblings of a new Star Fox game that feels faintly plausible to me. Mainstream appeal for McCloud and co. was effectively dead in the water (or a similar space-themed image), and there’s been a decade-long gap since the last entry in the series, which got a pretty lukewarm reception.

Sure, we hardcore Nintendo fans want to see furry fighter pilot return, but, until this month, would your average shelf browser have any idea who the anthropomorphic squad adorning the box art are? I don’t think so. But now we have The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

All of a sudden, ol’ Foxy is in a big screen blockbuster, with enough of a role to warrant a character poster of his own. A series reboot on the gaming side of things suddenly has a slice of credibility to it. It’s the perfect opportunity to sweep up all those parents who, in their post-cinema nap daze, might be swayed into buying their child a Switch 2 because “it’s the only one with that cool pilot game on it” (just nobody tell them about Starlink).

The marketing strategy adds up, and if it happens, I will be very excited for it — I’ve only gone and put ‘New Star Fox game’ on my New Year’s bingo card for the past three years running. But what doesn’t slide is that this means the Mario Movie character who most deserves another game of his own might be snubbed for a second time.

That’s right, it’s time to talk about Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker again.

As a brief reminder, Toad has received a good amount of screen time in both Illumination Mario movies (perhaps slightly less in Galaxy, but again, character poster-worthy). His ‘characterisation’ is about as shallow as they come, but this is the Mario Movie we’re talking about here, it ain’t Shakespeare.

The Keegan-Michael Key casting has perhaps pushed the character a little more in the spotlight than he might have been otherwise, but whichever way you look at it, this is another big player in two of the biggest animated movies of all time, and after the first theatrical debut, Nintendo handed out tie-in games like candy.

There was no 3D Mario to accompany the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, so many bemoaned Nintendo for missing out on the “obvious tie-in opportunity”. All we got in the year following its release was Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario RPG, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Princess Peach: Showtime!, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door — not to mention Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, Jamboree, Brothership, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, and Bananza after that. That’s a whole lot of Mario and co. on store shelves.

A similar approach is clearly already underway for the sequel. We got the appetite-whetting Super Mario Galaxy + Galaxy 2 pack last year, Mario Wonder arrived on Switch 2 just before the film opened with added movie star Rosalina, and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is already prepped for May to cash in on the new wave of Donald Glover-adoring Yoshi fans.

If a new Star Fox is in the tank, too, where does that leave poor old Toad? Snubbed. Twice. And it’s a snubbage that I take very personally because Treasure Tracker rules.

It’s been eight long years since this delightful little puzzler launched on Switch (and 3DS, weirdly), and a whopping 12 since its Wii U debut before that. Sure, the ‘Special Episode’ DLC gave us a little bump in 2019, but it’s been radio silence in the years since.

The DLC demonstrated how the puzzle box dioramas are the perfect size for a ‘bonus pack’ or two, and part of me that thought Nintendo might release more updates down the line — much like we did with Mario Odyssey and Maker 2, *crickets chirping*. No additional waves came, so Nintendo must have been saving up all the extra ideas for a sequel, right? Right?

And just imagine what a sequel could be! Sure, ‘just more of the first game’ would suit me nicely, but Mario’s come a long way since the OG Treasure Tracker launch, and there are plenty of new mechanics to choose from.

Perhaps Toad could stumble across a Wonder Flower in each stage, one that turns the diorama on its head and forces you to figure it all out again. Maybe Nintendo goes all-in on the Galaxy connection and has Toad freely exploring the levels from all angles (think Monument Valley, but Toad-ier). What if the puzzle box is one massive open world, and Toad has to uncover its secrets before a supernova threatens to destr—wait, that’s just Outer Wilds.

Heck, I wouldn’t even turn my nose up at ‘Captain Toad Treasure Tracker – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Goomba’s Adventure‘ at this point. Throw in a couple more ‘Episodes’ and some Mouse Mode controls, and you’re onto an Upgrade Pack winner.

Not releasing one in the wake of the first Mario Movie felt like a mistake, but one that I’m willing to forgive on account of the sheer number of other games we got, but this time around, it feels personal. You can’t finally give the little guy his own amiibo only to deny him another game.

And yet, the House of Mario remains silent on Cap. I’m choosing to believe that the Treasure Tracker sequel / NS2E is real, kept in a pile with the new Star Fox and the Ocarina of Time remake. Any day now, we’ll be hearing about it for real, and we’ll rejoice as one of the movies’ biggest stars is back in the limelight once more. Any day now…