Yoshi and the Mysterious Book
Good-Feel’s side-scrolling Yoshi adventure for Nintendo Switch 2: a talking encyclopedia called Mr. E falls onto Yoshi’s island, and Yoshi jumps into his pages to discover, study and name the creatures inside.
Game Facts
On this page
Overview
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a side-scrolling platformer starring Yoshi, developed by Good-Feel and published by Nintendo for Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo announced it on 12 September 2025 as a new Yoshi adventure for the Super Mario Bros. 40th anniversary, due in spring 2026. Its release date, 21 May 2026, was confirmed on 10 March 2026, and the game launched worldwide on 21 May as a Switch 2 exclusive.
The game is built around discovery: each habitat in Mr. E’s pages holds creatures, and Yoshi experiments with them — eating them, jumping on them or carrying them — to find out what they do. It is a single-player game.
Story: Mr. E
One day a talking encyclopedia named Mr. E — short for Mister Encyclopedia — falls from the sky onto the island where the Yoshis live. His pages describe all kinds of unusual creatures, and Yoshi jumps inside them to investigate.
Mr. E was created by a professor to protect creatures from extinction, and he asks the Yoshis to help him catalogue them. They are not the only ones searching: Bowser Jr. and Kamek are after a discovery of their own, and Bowser Jr. also appears in the habitats.
Mr. E keeps records on all kinds of unusual creatures, but he can’t read his own pages — his eyes are on his front cover — and his fall made him forget everything he knew about them. His magnifying-glass “monocle” draws Yoshi into the world inside his pages. During play Mr. E’s icon sits in the corner of the screen, reacting to discoveries and to run-ins with Bowser Jr. and Kamek, and pressing L lets him speak, often with a hint about what is still left to find.
Discoveries, Stars & Exploration Tools
The game has no goal flag to reach. Instead, every level asks Yoshi to study a creature, and Mr. E’s book fills up as he does. Here is how the main systems fit together.
Yoshi explores Mr. E by using a magnifying glass on his pages: the control stick moves around the page, inspects objects and peers into the habitats, and Yoshi is then pulled through the glass into that habitat.
Each habitat is built around one creature, which starts out unnamed. Every trait Yoshi uncovers — by playing with the creature, or using it on its surroundings and other creatures — earns a Star. One big discovery is worth three Stars and ends the level, and Stars unlock new chapters.
Once a creature has been studied, you can name it or let Mr. E suggest a name. Names can be up to ten characters, must pass the Switch system’s word filter, can’t match another creature’s name and can’t be the name of a main character.
Hidden across Mr. E’s pages, Smiley Flowers are found by interacting with creatures and solving puzzles. Each chapter shows how many every level holds and how many you have collected.
After the credits roll for the first time, Mr. E can invent an Exploration Tool for every five Smiley Flowers. There are 56 in total — 52 inventions plus four badges for milestones — such as a Smiley Flower Radar, a Bioscanner, a Speedometer, a Taste Sensor and a Thermometer, and they can be placed anywhere over the screen on a 15×8 grid.
Tokens picked up in levels (and from scanning amiibo once a day) buy hints about discoveries you haven’t made yet: first a silhouette, then more detail the more you spend.
Creatures
The creatures are the heart of the game. Yoshi can jump on them, carry them on his back or gobble them up to learn what they taste like, and each experiment reveals more about them. Some grow crops for Yoshi to eat, some make flowers bloom, some blow bubbles that let Yoshi float to hard-to-reach places, and some sing when he jumps on them. Every discovery opens up new ways to explore.
Discoveries are recorded in Mr. E’s pages. Players can give each new creature a name of their own or ask Mr. E to suggest one. Making discoveries earns Stars; one large discovery is worth three Stars and ends the level, and Stars unlock further chapters of the book.
Meet some of the creatures
A dozen of the creatures from the first four chapters, with the names Mr. E suggests (players can rename them). Descriptions follow Super Mario Wiki’s creature index.
Habitats & all 12 chapters
Each level is a habitat. As players progress, more of Mr. E’s chapters open up, with habitats such as woodland areas, windy mountaintops, sunny seasides and bug-infested jungles. The book has 12 chapters: the first, Wildwoods, is open from the start, later ones are unlocked with Stars, and chapters 11 and 12 are bonus chapters.
Habitats have no time limit and no game over — Yoshi cannot lose health or be defeated, so the focus stays on exploring. Hidden Smiley Flowers in each level count towards new Exploration Tools (five unlock a tool), and tokens can be spent on hints about traits still to be discovered.
Each of the first ten chapters has five or six habitats, with a creature to study in each. Finishing the first six chapters rolls the credits and opens four more; finishing those rolls the credits again and unlocks the last two bonus chapters. Special Studies and Mr. E’s Challenges are made up of challenge stages rather than new habitats. Star totals below are what each chapter needs to open.
Yoshi’s moves
Yoshi keeps his classic moves: he swallows creatures and objects with his tongue to make eggs and throw them, and he can Flutter Jump and Ground Pound. The new Tail Flick lets him grab creatures and carry them on his back, where some of them lend him their abilities — a Crazee Dayzee, for example, makes flowers bloom. Yoshi can be played in eight colours: green, orange, pink, yellow, light blue, red, blue and purple.
| Move | How it works |
|---|---|
| Eat & egg throw | Yoshi swallows creatures and objects with his tongue to make eggs, then aims and throws them at other creatures or objects. He can carry up to six eggs at a time. |
| Flutter Jump | The classic hover at the top of a jump, for extra distance. |
| Ground Pound | A downward slam from mid-air. |
| Tail Flick (new) | Usually on X: a flick of the tail puts a small creature or object on Yoshi’s back. Repeat it to throw what he’s carrying, or to use that creature’s special action; look up to toss it upwards, or crouch to set it down. Creatures that land on his back hop on by themselves. |
| Riding & floating | Some creatures change how Yoshi gets around: he can ride them like a surfboard, float inside the bubbles they blow, or be launched by them. |
| No defeat | Yoshi doesn’t lose health when creatures hit him and can’t be defeated, so there is no game over. |
Development
According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the game exists because of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: once Nintendo decided early on that Yoshi would appear in the film, development of a new Yoshi game began so that one would be available around the movie’s release (VGC, July 2026, citing Famitsu).
Nintendo again turned to Good-Feel, which had made the two previous Yoshi games, Yoshi’s Woolly World and Yoshi’s Crafted World. In developer interviews with Famitsu and Nintendo Dream, the team explained that Takashi Tezuka was involved in the earliest planning but became busy with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, so Hisashi Nogami took over as producer; Masahiro Yamamoto of Good-Feel directed. Development began on Nintendo Switch and moved to Nintendo Switch 2 after the new console was announced.
The creatures were designed to make players experiment with Yoshi’s actions, and a planner sculpted clay models of them to help the team work out how they would behave. The creature-naming feature was kept because one passionate staff member pushed for it, even though the team debated its cost, especially across multiple languages. Super Mario Wiki credits the soundtrack to composer Kumi Tanioka.
Demo & updates
Update notes are from Nintendo’s official support page; both updates are free.
- Early May 2026
A free in-store demo appeared on Nintendo Switch 2 kiosks at select Best Buy, Target, Walmart and GameStop stores in the US, about two weeks before launch. - 21 May 2026
Launch on Nintendo Switch 2. - 9 June 2026 · Ver. 1.0.1
Fixed a bug where players couldn’t leave the Index page after its explanation. - 8 July 2026 · Ver. 1.0.2
Save data from the demo can now be carried over: start the full game (with no existing save) after updating. Other fixes to improve the experience. - July 2026 · eShop demo
Nintendo of America announced a free Nintendo eShop demo on 8 July, covering the first chapter; progress carries over to the full game. Super Mario Wiki lists the Crazee Dayzee, Bunchabee and Scatterpuff habitats.
amiibo
Scanning compatible amiibo once per day earns tokens, which can be spent to unlock discovery hints.
Yoshi’s adventures
Yoshi has starred in his own games since 1991. These are the Yoshi games covered on Super Luigi Bros, with the year each first came out.
Yoshi1991 · NES
Yoshi’s Cookie1992 · NES
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island1995 · SNES
Yoshi’s Story1997 · Nintendo 64
Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island2002 · Game Boy Advance
Yoshi Topsy-Turvy2004 · Game Boy Advance
Yoshi Touch & Go2005 · Nintendo DS
Yoshi’s New Island2014 · Nintendo 3DS
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book2026 · Switch 2Gallery
Official screenshots. Select an image to view it larger.
Trivia
- Mr. E’s name is short for Mister Encyclopedia, as he tells the Yoshis when they meet.
- The Japanese title, Yosshī to Fukashigi no Zukan, translates roughly as “Yoshi and the Mysterious Field Guide”.
- Nintendo announced the game as part of the celebrations for the Super Mario Bros. 40th anniversary, and Miyamoto has said it was made because Yoshi was to appear in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
- Smiley Flowers date back to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, where they were called Special Flowers.
- The Jam Guys play “Flower Field” from Yoshi’s Island in their habitat, and the Moon’s Ravens recall Raphael the Raven from the same game.
- Goonies make the “Ah-ho!” noises last heard in Yoshi’s Story, and a new arrangement of Yoshi’s Song can play in the Merry Music Festival.
- After eating a hot pepper, Yoshi can briefly run on water, much like Dash Yoshi in Super Mario Galaxy 2.
- The music in the opening cutscene references Baby Bowser’s theme from Yoshi’s Crafted World.
- Players can name every creature they find themselves, or let Mr. E choose a name.
- Bowser Jr. and Kamek, the series’ regular troublemakers, are also hunting through the book’s habitats.
Sources
- Nintendo: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book (official game page)
- Nintendo (Middle East): Yoshi and the Mysterious Book launches exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 today
- Super Mario Wiki: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book
- Super Mario Wiki: Mr. E
- Super Mario Wiki: Exploration tool
- Super Mario Wiki: Tail Flick
- Nintendo Life: A Brand New Yoshi Adventure Is Heading To The Switch 2 (12 Sep 2025)
- Nintendo Life: Yoshi And The Mysterious Book Lands Switch 2 Release Date (10 Mar 2026)
- VGC: A new Yoshi adventure, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, is coming next spring (12 Sep 2025)
- Gematsu: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book ‘Overview’ trailer (23 Apr 2026)
- Nintendo Support: How to Update Yoshi and the Mysterious Book (official update notes)
- Nintendo of America: Try a free demo for Yoshi and the Mysterious Book! (8 Jul 2026)
- Nintendo Life: Try Yoshi And The Mysterious Book Early With An In-Store Demo (North America) (8 May 2026)
- VGC: Miyamoto says at least three Nintendo games were created with the Mario movies in mind (22 Jul 2026)
- Famitsu: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book developer interview (Japanese, 18 Aug 2026)
- Nintendo Dream: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book developer interview (Japanese, 13 Aug 2026)
- Nintendo of America (YouTube): Yoshi and the Mysterious Book – Overview Trailer – Nintendo Switch 2