David Bridges
Super Mario Maker 2 was officially launched six years ago on Saturday. Although Nintendo did not celebrate this significant milestone with any special events, one of the game’s most passionate players certainly did. DSteves achieved an extraordinary feat by becoming the first individual to clear a staggering 1 million SMM2 levels, marking a historic moment in the gaming community.
The dedicated Twitch and YouTube streamer aimed to reach this impressive goal by the sixth anniversary of the game and successfully accomplished it towards the end of a marathon gaming session. Notably, DSteves cleared an astonishing 1,000 levels during that single stream, showcasing his remarkable skills and commitment to Super Mario Maker 2.
After clearing the 999,999th level, an emotional DSteves entered the code for a custom level designed by a player named raysfire, specifically for this momentous occasion — you can experience it yourself by inputting the level ID QKQ-4TD-0DG. True to the spirit of SMM2, raysfire included some playful (or should that be Cheep Cheep?) trolling elements in the level, such as a Question Block that released an enemy instead of a helpful power-up. DSteves faced challenges while navigating this level, including unfortunate encounters with Bowser’s fireballs, cleverly concealed among a flurry of coins.
During the live stream, DSteves revealed that it took him six years and eight hours to achieve the incredible milestone of clearing 1 million SMM2 levels, celebrating the moment with a toast of champagne. The majority of his level clears — almost 800,000 — were achieved during a single Endless Challenge streak on the Easy difficulty setting (which is just slightly more than my current streak of 581). While DSteves didn’t grind through hundreds of thousands of ultra-challenging kaizo-style stages, his accomplishment is undeniably impressive and showcases his dedication to the game.
To reach this remarkable target, DSteves cleared an average of 456.4 levels per day. Throughout his journey, he skipped over 80,000 levels and experienced more than 772,000 deaths, ultimately hitting the million mark with approximately 165,000 more stage clears than the player in second place. I appreciate that SMM2 displays these stats publicly, giving insight into the achievements of players within the community.
Even after reaching this astonishing milestone, DSteves shows no signs of slowing down with SMM2. The streamer returned to playing the game the very next night and, as of this writing, has now cleared over 1,000,050 Super Mario Maker 2 stages, further solidifying his status as a top player in the Super Mario gaming universe.
Daniel Mercer
