Update 10/13/2023 3:25 p.m. ET: The speculation surrounding who voices Mario has been brought to an end. Kevin Afghani, who also voices Arnold in Genshin Impact, confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that he had stepped into the plumber’s boots.

The Verge reports that Nintendo also confirmed the news via an email which stated, “The voice actor’s name is Kevin Afghani.”

The original story follows below.

Fans believe they might have discovered who the new actor for Mario is in Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

In June, Nintendo revealed an all-new 2D side-scrolling Mario platformer called Super Mario Bros. Wonder. While one section of the internet was captivated by the upcoming game’s new power-up that transforms Mario and friends into elephants, other keen-eared fans were distracted by how “off” the Italian plumber’s various utterances sounded in the trailer. Nintendo confirmed in August that longtime Mario voice actor Charles Martinet was stepping away from the series, transitioning to an honorary role as a “Mario ambassador” for the company. Now, one Mario fanatic claims to have committed what the kids call a “cool crime” to figure out who the unannounced new Mario voice actor is.

Pre-order Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

According to Video Games Chronicle, an anonymous 4chan user claims they acquired a “kiosk demo” of Super Mario Bros. Wonder from a retail store in the U.S. and has hacked into it to obtain previously unrevealed information. On Wednesday, the anonymous user posted images of an unverified list of voice actors, which filtered out across other websites like ResetEra and Twitter. Although the list gained an air of credibility thanks to attached screenshots of previously unseen levels allegedly from World 1 of Wonder, it didn’t specify what roles the name-dropped actors would be voicing. This in turn led to a bit of online investigating on fans’ part to narrow down the potential Mario actor by cross-referencing each actor’s previous works.

After Famiboards user MondoMega whittled down the 21-person list by removing any female, foreign, or returning Mario cast member names, the list of potential western Mario actors came down to just two: Kevin Afghani (Arnold from Genshin Impact) and Mick Wingert (Heimerdinger from Arcane). The running theory in this makeshift Mario Wonder actor ARG is that the plumber’s new voice is probably Wingert. Why Wingert? As VGC notes, Afghani’s performance as Arnold sounds similar to Wonder’s talking flower, which would make veteran voice actor Wingert the likely pick for Wonder’s Mario.

Read More: Super Mario Bros. Wonder Is A Whole New Approach To 2D Mario Games
Pre-order Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

After giving Wingert’s demo reel a quick listen and discovering that he’s voiced a wide range of similarly plucky-sounding characters over his career—from Baki Hanma’s Kaku Kaioh, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’s Shu Amiguchi, to virtually every character in the Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness game—I wouldn’t be surprised if he were the new voice of Mario. Plus, Wingert’s high-energy voice print maps nicely to Nintendo’s adventurous plumber. Of course, we’ll find out come October 20 if Wingert is in fact the new voice of Mario or if a bunch of internet sleuths just got in a tizzy over nothing.

A 4chan user alleges they’ve watched a new trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, Rockstar Games’ years-in-the-making action-adventure game that’s already been leaked so hard we might as well call it a river. And GTA fans, always eager for the smallest morsel about their upcoming obsession, seemed ready to turn off their critical faculties and enjoy a sweet dose of hopium.

Fans on Reddit in particular got worked up, clinging to the October 26 trailer release date the 4chan user claimed to have seen (or lifted from a GTA leaker on Twitter, who “confirmed” in September that the 26th would be important), as well as the supposed game details 4chan’s alleged leaker claimed to have memorized (many of which were previously provided by 2022’s info flood). The fans don’t fully believe the 4channer, they say, but…what if?

GTA lovers have been clinging onto “what if?” for most of the decade since Grand Theft Auto V released. They’re aching badly for more big-time crime in Rockstar’s huge, seedy, cynical worlds, so much so that they see portals to it everywhere. This dirt road in Virginia is shaped like a roman “6”—surely that’s a sign. The golden femmebot embracing the Rockstar logo in some random promotional art is also a sign, somehow, that GTA 6 is on its way. This nondescript photo of a flat house in the recent San Andreas remaster, nestled next to images of instantly recognizable Rockstar environments, is a sign, too, as is this t-shirt in GTA Online.

Rockstar, of course, remains habitually silent through all of this all-consuming sleuthing; it hasn’t made any official GTA 6 announcements since 2022, when it informed fans in a Twitter post that the game’s development “is underway.” GTA obsessives have had to make their own fun since then.

Kotaku reached out to Rockstar for comment.

Read More: GTA 6 Leaker Hacked Rockstar With Just An Amazon Fire Stick In A Hotel Room

“Saved this for the 26th,” a popular Reddit comment said about the 4chan post, which claims the predicted October 26 trailer will reveal “two cars drag racing,” “underwear guy running down street with snake,” “ferris wheel,” and about two dozen other Mad Libs entries. “I don’t believe it but we’ll see.”

“idec if its fake,” wrote another commenter, “the miniscule chance that it’s real is enough to get me going.”

“Hope is a beautiful thing,” someone replied.

Publisher Take-Two expects GTA 6 by 2025, suggests its financial forecasts—but those are also subject to wishful thinking.

The Nintendo Switch was first revealed via a three-minute trailer posted to YouTube on October 20, 2016. Seven years later, Nintendo has pushed the video to private, reigniting fans’ excitement for a much anticipated announcement of the Switch 2, and also destroying an important piece of history in the process.

The disappearance was first noticed on the gaming forum ResetEra, where users joked about what it might mean, including if a Switch 2 reveal might now be imminent. That, sadly, seems very unlikely, given Nintendo’s repeated insistence that it won’t have any new hardware to discuss until the start of its next fiscal year in April 2024. The company also has two big games left to sell this year: Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario RPG Remake. Nintendo doesn’t usually like to steal the spotlight away from one product by surprise-announcing another.

The original 2016 Switch reveal was notable for a bunch of reasons. Unlike the Wii U, which got the full red carpet rollout at E3 2011, Nintendo relied on a single YouTube trailer to get everyone excited for its successor. Instead of executives describing all of the new handheld hybrid console’s functions in detail, fans got to see a video of the device in action, showing both people playing alone in their living rooms, and sitting around picnic tables at night by the basketball court.

The video highlighted the Switch as a machine for portability and sociability, epitomized by the now infamous scene of hipsters playing Super Mario Odyssey at a rooftop party in the city. It eventually garnered over 50 million views. Here’s a re-upload of it by Gamespot:

So why did Nintendo remove it all of the sudden? Is the company trying to get old marketing out of the way so a similarly-named Switch 2 doesn’t have to compete with it in the algorithmic SEO abyss of the modern internet? Or did it simply decline to renew the licensing rights for the White Denim song used in the trailer? That’s usually the reason why video game marketing materials get delisted from YouTube, though it’s not completely clear why Nintendo would abandon the most recognizable commercial for a console that’s still selling millions of units a year, especially heading into the 2023 holiday season.

Nintendo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Switch has been an unexpected boon for Nintendo, catapulting it from talk of a desperate merger with other tech companies following the failure of the Wii U, back into contention for being the maker of the number one gaming platform in terms of first-party exclusives, convenience, affordability, and just plain fun. Many see the Switch reveal as not just a flashy ad, but an important piece of the company’s legacy and gaming history more generally.

“Nintendo should take the steps to ensure the Switch reveal video stays on their channels forever,” tweeted former head of social content for Nintendo of America, Kit Ellis. “They may disagree, but it is an important piece of video game history. It’s time for a mindset shift on things like this now that their official museum is on the way.”

As for what this means about the impending announcement of the Switch 2, or whatever Nintendo ends up calling its next console, it seems clear one way or another that the company is finally gearing up for the upcoming reveal. Multiple reports of Switch 2 developer kits at Gamescom proved Nintendo’s next hardware is already being shown behind closed doors to development partners. Even if the official announcement is still several months off, more leaks seem inevitable at this point. Hopefully, whatever the Switch 2 is capable of, whether it’s 4K resolution or backwards compatibility, we can still party with it on the rooftop.

Correction 10/18/2023 11:12 a.m. ET: The song used in the original Switch reveal trailer was not by Imagine Dragons.