Wario (franchise)

The Wario (ワリオ) franchise is a spin-off of the 'Mario' franchise that features Wario as the main character. It is the first franchise created by Nintendo to feature a villain/antihero as the main protagonist. The franchise was created by game designer Hiroji Kiyotake for Nintendo R&D 1, which primarily handled its games and later turned these duties over to its successor, Nintendo SPD Group No. 1. Some Wario games have been developed by other companies, including Suzak, Good-Feel, and Intelligent Systems.

The Wario franchise branches into two main series, the Wario Land series and the WarioWare series. Wario Land games are platforming games that involve the greedy and selfish protagonist looking for treasure and other ways of accumulating wealth. Its first game, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, was the first game to feature Wario as a playable character. The WarioWare games are compilations of short minigames (called microgames) which are made by Wario and his friends, motivated by his wish of making money; they work in the fictional WarioWare, Inc., a video game producing company. These microgames often make use of the new technologies of the system they are released for. Beyond these two main series, Wario has various installments in other genres.