Who doesn’t love Nintendo Land? If you’ve played the Wii U and given this title a shot, there’s really no way you can come out of the multiplayer experience without a smile on your face. But sadly, not everyone has a group of friends or nearby family who they can play with in person, so it’s no surprise that the question has been raised: Why isn’t there an online multiplayer mode for the one of the Wii U’s biggest launch titles?
It turns out that this wasn’t an oversight—not including this feature was fully intentional. Nintendo Land producer Katsuya Eguchi spoke with Famitsu about this missing option, and explained that the developers actually wanted gamers to interact and play with each other in the real world. The games were designed for players in the same room with each other:
“Nintendo Land’s multiplayer attractions work because of the communication shared between the people playing them. They were set up from the start to be something people in the same room could enjoy.”
That said, Miis from just about anywhere can appear in your plaza, and you can check a friend’s status in the game from seeing them there. It was an interesting decision not to include the online multiplayer—at the very least, it forces people to step away from their screens for a bit and perhaps make a few new friends.
