Mario Kart 8, Splatoon for Wii U Getting Updated to Bring Back Online Play

Nintendo fans still playing on the Wii U haven't been able to play the original Splatoon or Mario Kart 8 online for a couple of months now after support for online play was suspended due to a vulnerability that needed to be addressed, but that's going to be changing soon. Nintendo announced this week in an update shared via its support site that online support will soon be brought back to both of those games. It sounds like the issue has been fixed, but Nintendo cautioned that there's a chance online play could be taken away again if the issue persists.

Online play for these games was suspended back in March 2023, Nintendo said, so it's been just a few months that people haven't been able to play the games online. Games for the Wii U don't exactly get updated very often anymore thanks to the Nintendo Switch, so it may be a surprise to see anything updating on that console at all, but you'll have to update both games if you want to play online.

"In March 2023, Nintendo paused network services for the Wii U games Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 to address a vulnerability related to online play," Nintendo said. "The issue has now been fixed, and so we will resume online play for these games based on the schedule below. Please accept our sincere apologies for the extended waiting period."

Online play will resume on August 3rd, Nintendo said, but the company again cautioned that the feature could be taken away, too.

"If further issues occur which make it difficult to continue supporting online play, we may have to discontinue the online play service for the Wii U games Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 at short notice," Nintendo continued. "Should this occur, please note that offline play would continue to function normally."

Nintendo has kept interest in the Wii U and its content alive here and there by tossing some callbacks to Switch users periodically, but it's definitely winding down its support of the console by now. Several Wii U games have been ported over to the Switch, at least, and some of them have actually performed quite well there despite the lukewarm reception to the Wii U console itself.