After 6 straight Olympic appearances over 16 years, Mario and Sonic are sitting out Paris 2024

The Paris Olympics are just getting underway, but the event has already made history by being the first Olympics in 16 years to arrive without a new edition of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.

The first edition of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games launched back in 2007 on the Wii, back when it was still profoundly bizarre to see Nintendo and Sega working together. This title launched one year before the Beijing 2008 Olympics, and every Olympic event that followed saw another Mario and Sonic tie-in land the year before the games were scheduled to take place.

We got Mario and Sonic games tied in with Vancouver 2010, London 2012, Sochi 2014, Rio 2016, and Tokyo 2020 - all told, six games spread across nearly two decades worth of Olympic events. But 2023 brought us no such tie-in game ahead of the Paris games, and now that the opening ceremony has come and gone, I think it's safe to say Nintendo and Sega aren't hiding some secret project from us.

There is, however, an official Olympics game this year: Olympics GO! Paris 2024 for Android, iOS, and the Epic Games Store. If you're used to console-based takes on the Olympics, a mobile-first title might not inspire much confidence, but developer nWay has a solid pedigree, including the surprisingly good Power Rangers fighting game, Battle for the Grid.

But who wants a realistic take on the Olympics when you could have Mario and Sonic competing at the games? I need to see Wario and Dr. Eggman swimming laps under the Eiffel Tower, gosh dangit. Alas, it seems the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series might be a thing of the past, but I'll still be crossing my fingers for a miraculous comeback ahead of Milano Cortina 2026.

In the meantime, why not check out the best Mario games and best Sonic games of all time?