RUMOR: Mario Vs. Donkey Kong may have retained Charles Martinet's voice

As you all know, Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, Luigi, Wario and many others, has moved into the role of Mario Ambassador. Martinet stepped aside to allow for Kevin Afghani to take on the roles, and he’s been doing a fine job so far. We’ve heard Afghani’s work in Super Mario Bros. Wonder and WarioWare: Move It!, but now it seems we might be in store for more Martinet in Mario’s next outing.

A round of gameplay for Mario Vs. Donkey Kong on Switch recently hit the internet, and it’s full of not just gameplay, but some interesting audio as well. In the comments under multiple videos on YouTube, you’ll see people saying that they believe the voices used in Mario Vs. Donkey Kong are coming from none other than Charles Martinet.

To be clear, this would be a case of archival voice work being used, and not newly-recorded lines from Charles. It’s also worth noting that Martinet provided the voice work in the original Mario Vs. Donkey Kong release, although this Switch version is using much higher-quality recordings. That said, we don’t have confirmation on whether or not the lines in Mario Vs. Donkey Kong are from Charles Martinet or not. We’ve reached out to Nintendo for clarification on the matter and we’ll be sure to let you know if/when we hear back.

If you’d like to hear Mario’s voice in Mario Vs. Donkey Kong on Switch to decide for yourself, you’ll get plenty of examples in the video below.