Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Guides

How to play co-op in Super Mario Maker 2

Steven Petite
By

Super Mario Maker 2 is all about the communal experience of making and sharing levels. As a multiplayer experience, Mario Maker 2 is mostly centered on online play, but you can still play local co-op with family and friends on one Nintendo Switch console. It’s not made readily apparent in the menus, but we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to play Super Mario Maker 2 with two or more players.

Related Videos

Difficulty

Moderate

Duration

20 minutes

What You Need

  • Nintendo Switch

  • Super Mario Maker 2

Further reading

super mario maker 2 how to play local co op guide 768x768

How to play local co-op

Sadly, you cannot play local co-op directly through Course World, which makes the process somewhat confusing. Courses must be downloaded first and then viewed in the Coursebot menu to play local co-op. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to start playing local co-op.

Step 1: In Course World, find a course you want to play cooperatively, select Download, and choose an open slot to save the course. You can have up to 60 courses downloaded at one time. That figure doesn’t include the 32 slots for courses you create.

Step 2: Head over to Coursebot and choose the course.

Related

Step 3: See the four little alienesque heads on the right side of the screen? If you move the analog stick to the right, you’ll find the option Play Together. Select it.

Step 4: Activate your Joy-Con/Pro Controllers to join. You can play local co-op with up to four players (Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Toadette). Single Joy-Con controllers are all you need, but you can also use the dual Joy-Con setup. Player one will always be Mario, while players two through four will be Luigi, Toad, and Toadette, respectively.

It’s unfortunate that you are restrained to co-op since versus mode is an option in both online and local wireless play via Course World. For now, at least, that’s all you get for local co-op play.

super mario maker 2 how to play local co op guide 1 768x768

How to make levels with a friend

In addition to playing courses with up to four players on one Switch console, you can also make courses with a friend. Creating levels is confined to two players, which is good because it can get chaotic.

Step 1: To make courses with friends, navigate to the alien heads on the lower-left side of the design screen. Making courses with friends requires you to each use a single Joy-Con, with player one being Mario and player two set as Luigi.

Step 2: Mario can use the multigrab copy function, access the menu, and erase parts. Luigi, however, can only select parts using a confined menu and erase.

How to play online multiplayer

As mentioned above, you can also play online or via local wireless with multiple Switch consoles. There are a few different options for playing multiplayer online. When you select Network Play within the Course World menu, you’ll see the option for Multiplayer co-op and Versus, as well as the options to play with friends via the internet or locally with separate systems. Playing with friends allows you to create your own private room to ensure unwanted visitors can’t join.

Alternatively, you can play with strangers online. This option will match you up with four random players and give you a chance to select, as a team, one of four difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Expert, and Super Expert.

Does Story Mode have co-op?

There isn’t an option to play with friends if you’re in Story Mode on Super Mario Maker 2. Co-op is just available when you’re playing custom levels you’ve created or playing maps you’ve downloaded from the Coursebot menu.

super mario maker 2 how to play local co op 2020042920241300 bf19fbea37724338d87f26f17a3b97b2 768x768

World Maker

With Super Mario Maker 2’s latest update, you’re able to expand upon your creations with the new World Maker feature. This means that any stage you’ve created can be linked by overworlds so you’re almost crafting your own entire game. You can play through the worlds you’ve made in co-op, but, unlike the regular level creator, only one player can make a world at a time.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
The best N64 games of all time
ocarina of time hall fame the legend zelda

When the N64 was introduced to the gaming world, people were taken aback by how the graphics came to life compared to NES games and SNES. The concept of "3-D gaming" was entirely new, bringing us closer to the characters and stories we already loved. New Mario games and Pokemon titles became some of the highlights for the system, bringing characters to life in a way we had not seen before. Although not all the games from the N64 could survive the tests of time, there are quite a few that have place in our hearts. In honor of these games we grew up and loved so much, we have compiled a list of all of the best N64 games based on their genre.

If you think you can name all the best N64 games, read on and see how well you do.

Read more
Claim these free 3DS and Wii U games before the eShop closes
free 3ds wii u eshop games nintendo and

The eShops on the 3DS and Wii U will shut down on March 27, so players are splurging on great games that they want to pick up in the final days of each storefront's life span. If you can't drop any cash on games for these systems before then though, you're probably wondering what's available from them for free. For the most part, it's demos, as the 3DS and Wii U weren't really known for their free-to-play offerings. Even then, many of the available free-to-play games -- or "free-to-start" titles as Nintendo called them in that era -- won't have much use after the eShops cease game sales because most of their content is gated by microtransactions.

Some might be a little more time-consuming due to in-game timers and other microtransactions, but are still worth checking out regardless. If you're wondering what full games you can play on 3DS and Wii U for free ahead of the eShop storefronts' discontinuation on March 27, we recommend checking out the following six titles.
Team Kirby Clash Deluxe

Read more
Save $40 when you add 1TB of storage to your Xbox Series X or PS5
western digital wd black d30 game drive 1 tb deal best buy march 2023

 

The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are finally attainable, after years of being sold out and underproduced. Both have great options for downloading new games monthly -- Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Now -- but they just don't come shipped with enough storage to hold all that content. That's where external hard drive deals come in. Right now you can buy a 1TB Western Digital WD_Black D30 hard drive for $110, $40 off its usual price. That should give you enough storage for tons of full games, and you can forget about cleaning up your hard drive for a while.

Read more