Super Mario Maker 2 has arrived, and with a flood of stages on the way it’s no surprise that plenty of players want to know how to play local co-op with friends. Strangely, Super Mario Maker 2 makes this a fair bit harder than it really ought to be, leaving many players confused. Once you know how to set it up, you’ll be able to hop into levels with your mates with ease, so read this guide and find out how to play local co-op multiplayer with friends in Super Mario Maker 2.
Does Super Mario Maker 2 have local Multiplayer?
First of all, let's quell those fears: yes, Super Mario Maker 2 has local multiplayer. in fact, you can play any levels you create or download in local multiplayer, whether they were designed to be played with one or four players! It's a core part of the game, but for some strange reason Nintendo made it surprisingly hard to notice the option to do so, which brings us on to...
How to play local co-op with friends in Super Mario Maker 2
Thanks to Shacknews for use of their image.
To set up a local co-op game with two players or more in Super Mario Maker 2 you’ll need to go through a fair few steps. The biggest thing to be aware of is that you can’t do it through Course World, which is likely where the confusion lies. You can only play local co-op with friends by using Coursebot. If you’ve not opened that yet, it’s where all your created and downloaded levels are stored. So, if you want to play levels you’ve made or downloaded — you’ll need to download them through Course World — then you need to do the following steps:
Open up Coursebot with the plus or minus button and find the level in My Courses or Downloaded Courses. Once you have the level you want, select Play Together from the small option on the right-hand side of the screen. It should have an icon with four colored blobs with eyes. When you pick this you’ll have the chance to connect any controllers you want to use for co-op play. Then hit ready and you’ll be into the game!
It’s a bizarrely obtuse method of playing in local co-op for a Super Mario game. There’s currently no way to play in Course World with multiple players as it forces you to use both Joy-Cons for control of one character. The good news is that when playing in local co-op you can try out any course, even those not listed for multiplayer! Though it should be noted that many of them probably won’t perform as well if designed for just one person.
We’re not sure why Nintendo made it so confusing to play local co-op multiplayer with friends in Super Mario Maker 2, but there you are. Now that you know you can jump into any levels you like together, so have fun!
