Polygon recently talked with Hisashi Koinuma, Koei Tecmo’s Executive Vice President, about the success of the Dynasty Warriors series (and its various spinoffs) in Japan and the rest of the world. Naturally, the conversation drifted towards Hyrule Warriors, one of the most recent spinoffs for the series and one of Koei Tecmo’s biggest successes. But instead of resting on his laurels, Koinuma admitted that what he’d really like to do is develop a Dynasty Warriors game set in the Mushroom Kingdom:

He’s open to the idea of a Musou game targeted at kids, for instance, if the right license comes along, and in a recent interview with Eurogamer, he even mentioned a Mario Musou game, saying, “One of my ultimate dreams would be using that character with the red hat on top.”

Asked whether he was joking with that comment, Koinuma says he thinks it could actually work. He sees Mario as a character that would need to branch out from hand-to-hand combat but could focus on his distinctive moves. Speaking hypothetically, Koinuma suggests Mario could “blast enemies off the screen or knock them unconscious” with his moveset. “I suppose the game would be balanced so the kids could enjoy it as their first action game experience, whereas the adults could enjoy the game with friends and families as a group,” he says.

While this doesn’t mean that a “Super Mario Warriors” game is definitely in development, it seems like it could be a possibility, and an intriguing one at that. At the very least, Koinuma’s words likely point to a world where we’ll see more Nintendo/Koei Tecmo collaborations in the future.