Late last year, Nintendo unveiled Luigi’s Mansion 3 for Nintendo Switch during a Direct. It definitely caught many people’s eye with the small amount of footage shown, but it was not until E3 2019 that the huge scope of the game became known. What we saw blew many away and made us realize just how far beyond the first two games this would be.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 looks to have addressed almost all the concerns from the first two games and then some. It will have a lengthy campaign, unlike the first entry, and it will use an open-ended structure, unlike Dark Moon’s mission-based gameplay. Whereas the games before now had more basic controls and interactions, Luigi’s Mansion 3 will see our protagonist take on a new Poltergust with new abilities. This includes new means of attacking enemies via shooting a plunger to grab enemies and bash them around. This gives things a slightly more arcadey feel and will also allow more interactions with the environment. This, in turn, will open up a lot of new opportunities for explorations and puzzles, by having Luigi be able to grab and pull things in a very different way.
A major highlight though, is the way the game will be handling co-op. Not only is the ScareScraper mode returning, but it is being heavily expanded on by allowing more players to join. The co-op game mode itself looks far better than before, both for competing to defeat ghosts and for environments and fights you get into. It seems Nintendo really wants to push co-op this time around.
I haven’t yet even gotten into the subject of Gooigi, a ghost-like copy of Luigi made entirely out of goo, and how players can team up together during the main game to solve puzzles and take on challenges. Both characters have their strengths and weaknesses, such as Gooigi being able to pass through spikes that Luigi cannot, while Luigi is unaffected by water. It is an inventive touch and helps build on ideas introduced in previous entries like the co-op mode in the 3DS remake. That said, both characters are a core mechanic in single player mode as well, which also gives a challenge for players and a good sense of satisfaction when the puzzle is solved.
The biggest reason the game looks good though is just how much work has been put into it. The worlds in the hotel are more diverse and the developers have put in some wild ideas. Exploring movie sets and fighting more inventive ghosts based on the movies is just one instance that gives Luigi’s Mansion 3 its unique identity. Portrait ghosts are returning as well, giving us boss fights that aren’t just generic enemies, but have distinct personalities and appearances. Everything just seems bigger and better, and that’s all we really want.
One last thing to remember is that Nintendo is not pressuring Next Level Games to rush the game out. As such, they are able to give it a larger degree of polish, and because of this, there will be no crunch period. Instead, the developers are being allowed to work on the game at their own pace. After all that has been exposed recently about crunch in the game industry, this is a nice change to hear. The game has a fresh creativity to it that is lacking in many western games, such as a willingness to go beyond the franchise norm and actually try new things. If you have a Switch, then you need to keep an eye out for Luigi’s Mansion 3 this year.