Mario Almost Starred in Splatoon

Nintendo unveiled Splatoon during E3 2014, and the game has already received high praise for its ideas and unique art style and characters. The beloved Inklings, however, almost didn't exist.

As revealed by Miyamoto in an interview with Time, the development team took a while to nail down the look of the main characters, and if they couldn't find anything, Miyamoto would've had them use Mario characters.

At one point during development, we held a small internal review of the game. We had found that the ink-battle play mechanic was fun, and the team was working very hard to brush up on that aspect at that time, but we were losing the freshness of the game the more the team worked on it.

The thing which concerned us most was the main character. It looked as if it could be found in any game and lacked uniqueness. So, I told the game's producer and the director to even consider using Mario if we could not find the right character. I also explained to them why I was providing such a suggestion.A few weeks later, they gingerly approached me with the squid-like character, and we decided on that direction right on the spot. The director and others who nervously brought the squid character to me must have been surprised with my positive reaction, but at the time, I didn't accept it for lack of better options. I actually thought, 'This must be it!' It's fun to nurture something so unique, and I'm glad that they were able to experience bringing it to fruition.