Nintendo’s mascot goes bare-chested at the beach in his newest adventure.

The upcoming Super Mario Odyssey is set to show us Mario in ways we really haven’t seen the Nintendo mascot before. For starters, a lot of the gameplay requires Mario to toss his sentient cap around to utilize its powers, and so he appears hatless more often than in any other game. He’s also able to fuse his body with enemies’, giving us our first at hybrids such as Mario/Koopa Troopa and Mario/Tyrannosaurus Rex, and the game’s New Donk City level has Mario sharing the screen with realistically proportioned humans for the first time as well.

But many will say that the most attention-grabbing graphical visual innovation in Super Mario Odyssey is the debut of Mario’s nipples.

▼ Also, despite his long-standing love of facial hair, Mario apparently shaves his chest so that it’s as smooth as a baby’s.

As part of its recent Nintendo Direct media campaign, Nintendo showed off am extended preview video of the game, hosted by producer Yoshiaki Koizumi. While Mario is dressed in his customary overalls on for most of his scenes, at the video’s 5:47 mark a screen-filling still shows the video game icon frolicking on a sandy beach, wearing just a pair of swim trunks and his hat (perhaps to keep his face from getting sunburned).

What makes Mario’s shirtlessness particularly unusual is that the video also shows him running about the game’s Bubblaine seaside area while still in his normal outfit.

He doesn’t even need to take his overalls off to jump into the water and swim down towards the ocean floor.

This makes it seem like Mario stripping off his shirt is an entirely discretionary action. Maybe it’s not even restricted to when he’s on the beach, and players can let the Nintendo star indulge in his exhibitionist tendencies in other levels too?

In any case, Nintendo seems quite proud of Mario’s bare-chested look. Its first appearance in the video comes as Koizumi is introducing Super Mario Odyssey’s “snapshot mode” in-game photo function, saying “For many, Mario games are all about making memories, so capture away.”

▼ It’s even the YouTube thumbnail for the video’s Japanese-language version, though not the English one.

In the end, Mario having nipples is probably something that should have been a forgone conclusion, but, much like the fact that he’s no longer a plumber, having Nintendo itself confirm the situation is a little startling (and could it be why Super Mario Odyssey has the highest ESRB age rating for a mainline Mario game ever?). But now that the cat/nipples are out of the bag/shirt, it’s probably only a matter of time until we see Luigi’s as well.

Source: Youtube/Nintendo, h/t Kotaku USA
Top image: YouTube/Nintendo
Insert images: YouTube/Nintendo, YouTube

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he wonders is this means Nintendo will be releasing a “Shirtless Mario” Amiibo.