Mario + Rabbids The Stairway of Rogue

Mario + Rabbids The Stairway of Rogue is a Nintendo Switch tactical action RPG game released on July 10th 2026. It is the third game in the Mario + Rabbids series, and the sequel to Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. Like the previous two games in the series, the game is a crossover featuring characters from the Mario franchise and Ubisoft's Rabbids and Rayman series, however it introduces original characters created by Nintendo. The game features twenty-four playable characters who can be used to form a team of four in the overworld and in battle. The plot revolves around the cast travelling across the Mushroom Kingdom to collect seven Aluminum Stars in the colors of a rainbow to open the gate to the Stairway of Rouge. 
Like the previous two games, Nintendo published the game in Japan, whilst Ubisoft published the game for South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
== Story ==
On the way back to the Mushroom Kingdom after defeating Cursa and rescuing Rosalina, via the Comet Observatory, Bowser sits alone on the porch looking out at the stars. As he watches them, he sees them form into the shape of a stairway, unnerved by the allegorical meaning of the shape, he gets up and walks into the library. Five months later, Princess Peach sits peacefully, putting her makeup on in her bedroom, whilst the Rabbids play downstairs in the foyer with Rayman and his crew. A merchant breaks in through the window and kidnaps Peach. Mario and Luigi catch sight of the merchant outside and chase after it as it heads in the direction of Bowser's Castle.
As Mario and Luigi travel through the path to Bowser's Castle, Beep-0 catches up with them, determined to remind them of fighting enemies on the field knowing that they still have their weapons in their arsenal. Luigi mentions that they have their own ways of attacking, to which Beep-0 is happy to hear. Arriving at the castle, Mario and Luigi fight a series of enemies before reaching the merchant, who has a number of citizens from the Mushroom Kingdom in cages including Princess Peach, Bowser and Toadsworth. The brothers proceed to fight the merchant, winning in the process as it runs up the stairs to the roof. As everyone follows the merchant, they discover that a staircase leading to the sky has formed. They watch the merchant run up the staircase as it drops a leaflet advertising the staircase. Before anyone can follow the merchant, a giant gate forms at the bottom of the staircase. 
Mario picks up the leaflet and reads it. The leaflet documents the name of the staircase, where it came from and the year it was built. The name being "The Staircase of Rogue" and the owner of the staircase being called "Smacksmith". Bowser grabs the leaflet out of Mario's hand and looks at it, furious. He demands that everyone has to work together to somehow get this staircase off of his roof. As he's giving this speech, Beep-0 looks at the leaflet again and sees that the only way to open the gate is to find "the seven Aluminum Stars of the Mushroom Kingdom". Beep-0 gets Bowser's attention and points this out to him, to which Bowser repeats what Beep-0 tells him. Toadsworth gets surprised at the mention of "seven Aluminum Stars".
Back at Peach's Castle, a conference meeting is held with said citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom attending, and a yellow star sprite named Starlow and her family giving some pointers on finding the Aluminum Stars. The oldest member of the family Eldwin mentions that there was one that he buried in the depths of Totem's Dunes a very long time ago. With this knowledge in mind, Bowser hand picks 22 of the 60,000 attendees at the meeting and demands them to follow him to Totem's Dunes, the people he picks are Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Edge, the three Rabbids, Spawny, Rayman Globox, Barbara, Murfy, The Magician, Rosalina, Starlow Princess Daisy, Cappy, Wario and Waluigi. Before standing up to walk out, Bowser Jr. raises his hand and asks his father if he could come too, explaining that he would like to go on a roadtrip. Bowser, initially hesitant, allows his son to come in case something goes wrong with his body. Following Bowser, Beep-0 catches up to Mario and asks him whether he knows what he's doing, to which Mario shrugs his shoulders. 
=== Totem's Dunes ===
Taking the back roads to the dunes, Beep-0 comments on the totem poles surround the roads, Starlow tells him that they have arrived. Whilst in the dunes, the cast goes on a scavenger hunt for the first Aluminum Star, looking in the dunes themselves, the city of Totem poles, the pyramids, and even the old village run by Tostarenans and Jaxis. Eventually, the cast find themselves fighting Mummipokey, who supports a new ability to dissemble himself and allow his segments to attack the cast, and as mentioned by Bowser is a lot bleaker then the last time he hired him to do his dirty work. Upon retrieving the red Aluminum Star from him, the Star opens its eyes and speaks to the cast, immediately recognizing Starlow as a member of the Star Sprite family. The Star tells everyone that it along with its other colored collogues had been buried by multiple Star Sprites after being used by a neighboring community in the skies of the Mushroom Kingdom to build a Staircase to connect the two regions. The community had fallen into poverty following the construction of the staircase and the people started struggling physically and mentally, with the owner's patience finally snapping a year after the construction of the bridge. 
The owner had attacked the Mushroom Kingdom to give himself the sensation of giving the citizens the same amount of pain his people felt building the bridge, with the Star Sprites using the power of the Aluminum Stars to take the owner back to the skies and form a rainbow colored gate at the bottom of the staircase, only openable by using a specific color order. After their color was drained, the Aluminum Stars were laid to rest in seven different parts of the Mushroom Kingdom. The Red Star tells the cast where the other Stars are and that collecting them is vital, knowing that someone in the community most likely figured out the color combination to the gate. The Star introduces itself as "Stefano" after Starlow asks it what its name is. 
Cutting to a place in the sky called "The King's Trials", sits the same merchant in the king's chair, reading the newspaper and pleased at the prospect of having intruded on Bowser's property with the staircase. A voice nearby calls out the name "Mr Smacksmith", as a tiger with a lamp shade on its head runs up to the merchant, telling him that someone has found the first Aluminum Star. Mr Smacksmith looks annoyed and tells the tiger to "send in the troops". The tiger takes the order, runs off somewhere else and Smacksmith goes back to reading the newspaper. 
=== Scummy Sandspit ===
With Scummy Sandspit being the closet location nearby, the cast head there to look for the next Star. Stefano tells the cast that the star was buried somewhere in the watermelon close to the shore. After managing to move the Watermelon onto the bank via some switches and cable ropes, the cast climb inside the watermelon and dig into it, eventually falling through the ceiling and into a civilization full of giant ants. Whilst treasure hunting inside of the watermelon, looking for the second Star, the cast find themselves fighting against the invasion of multiple tigers. Dropping down from the opening of the watermelon lands King Bob-omb, who sparks glowing red eyes and a different color palette, Bowser annoyed at this point grabs him by the mustache and punches him the face, tell him to snap out of it. King Bob-omb pushes him back on his shell and the cast engage in a fight with him. 
The fight ends with him exploding, with the impact of the explosion causing the watermelon to explode, sending everyone inside it in multiple directions. The ants land in Peach's Castle, Moonbeam Meadows, Totem's Dunes and the Star Sanctum respectively whilst the cast land in multiple parts of Foggy Bog Forest.
== Characters ==
=== Playable ===
== Gameplay ==
As a tactical action RPG game, the gameplay has a party of four characters, selected from the list of twenty four characters in the game, travelling across the overworld and fighting enemies to level up and customize their stats, abilities and Skill Trees. Unlike the previous two games, there are no battles that involve reaching an area, all battles are optional as they are manually accessible by dashing into an enemy on the field or by fighting a boss. In the overworld, the four characters walk within a circle, with the lead character leading the party as all four characters have the abilities to Jump, Spin around, use Beep-0 for destroying blocks and scan the area for hidden objects. All four characters themselves are mapped to four buttons (A), (B), (X) and (Y).
=== Overworld ===
The overworld exploration is set in an open-world style of progression, with the party being able to travel to any of the game's locales completely on foot, much like most of the other Mario RPG games. Fast travel points in the game's locales exist if players want to get to certain locations much quicker, the main fast travel point being the Moon Room in the basement of Peach's Castle, which features a series of ten color coded pipes surrounding one rainbow colored pipe in a circle. Other fast travel points such as the WM ARC and the Toad Network exist in the game as points that show up in the locales. 
=== Battle System ===
Like its predecessor, Mario + Rabbids The Stairway of Rogue is based around free movement on the battlefield whilst keeping a focus on weapon based combat. Unlike the aforementioned game however, the battle system is not 100% weapon focused and places a bigger focus on using other means of attacking enemies on the field. For example, Mario and Luigi's main attack options are "Jump" and "Hammer", whilst their weapon options are "Dual Slinger" and "Sharpshooter" respectively. For the first time in the series, characters are able to time button inputs to counterattack attacks from the enemies on the field. Boss fights themselves don't have any existing enemies in the battle field and only rely on the characters solving certain puzzles to find the boss' weakspots, whilst damaging them simultaneously. Sometimes, the bosses will summon stronger variants of already existing enemies that are color coded to take advantage of either manipulating the battle field to mess with the characters, or shield the boss when they are low on health. 
For a first in the series, the battle system is played in real time, as no one takes any turns to attack each other. Battles also take place within the areas of the Mushroom Kingdom themselves and not in a battlefield in a secluded backdrop, meaning that the characters can move freely in the area they are currently in and not be confined to a specific range of movement on the field. However the same rules of specific character actions being assigned a cooldown time seen in the previous two games apply here to make more usage of the other characters in the party and not just one character.
==== Special Attacks ====
Special Attacks are a new addition to the series. These types of attacks involve all four selected characters in the party working together to damage all enemies on the field, using various items, usually seen in the Mario Kart series. There are a total of ten special attacks and they cost a specific number of coins to use.
== Locations ==
* Peach's Castle
* Moonbeam Meadows
* Totem's Dunes
* Scummy Sandspit
* Foggy Log Forest
* Spray-Sun Glacier 
* Runny Ridge
*Star Road
*Star Sanctum
* Bowser's Castle
* The Stairway of Rogue
* The King's Trials
== Memories ==
== Weapons ==
== Release ==
== Quotes ==
== References of other games ==
== Staff ==
== Gallery ==
=== Boxarts ===
File:Boxart for a cool game.png|European boxart
Category:Nintendo Switch Games
Category:Mario + Rabbids
Category:Nintendo Games
Category:Mario (series)
Category:Rabbids
Category:Rabbids (series)
Category:Rabbids Games