It is worth noting that, while many of the studios listed in the credits were likely teams specialising in supporting the development of major titles, others seem to be more specialised. Red Hot CG, for instance, is a development team that focuses primarily on the art assets that games need. The studio has credits across quite a few major releases, including Destiny 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Valorant, and even Starfield, among many others.

Keywords Studios, on the other hand, is a larger support studio that has several other listed studios under its overall banner, including GameSim and Smoking Gun Interactive.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has been in development for quite some time. The title was originally unveiled all the way back in 2017. At the time, the title was noted as not being made with traditional Metroid Prime franchise developer Retro Studios. Rather, at the time, it was being made by Bandai Namco Studios based out of Japan and Singapore. Since then, however, quite a few things changed for the title, and its development had been confirmed as having been restarted under Retro Studios back in 2019.

The title once more puts players in the armour of Samus Aran who is stuck on the planet Viewros and must fight for survival against a variety of foes, including rival bounty hunter Sylux. Keeping to series tradition, the first-person gameplay of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond offers a heavy mix of exploration, platforming, puzzle solving, and action. To aid players, Samus is once more equipped with the ability to scan objects in the environment which can then help her unravel the overall story of the title.

The newest entry in the Metroid Prime franchise is also bringing with it some new features, like psychic powers that can be used throughout the game. Along with this, Samus will also have access to the Vi-0-La bike to travel around the game’s various environments.

Releasing on both Switch and Switch 2, the version of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond on the more recent console will feature quite a few unique features, like the ability to use the Joy-Con 2 controller as a mouse, more closely mimicking the gameplay of traditional PC-based shooters.

For more details about Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, here are 15 things you need to know. Also check out what has changed since Metroid Prime 3.

Studios credited with work on Metroid Prime 4: Beyond:

• Retro Studios
• Next Level Games
• Virtuos
• Territory Studio
• Waterproof
• Keywords Studios
• Liquid Development
• Volta
• AMC Studio
• GameSim
• Smoking Gun Interactive
• Forge Studios
• Red Hot CG
• Original Force
• Devoted Studios
• Room 8 Studio
• Next Gen Dreams
• Mock Science
• Cup of Tea
• Formosa Interactive
• House of Moves

As of June 30th, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door sold 1.76 million. The remake of the 2004 Nintendo GameCube classic garnered strong critical reviews at launch (as noted in its accolades trailer).

Meanwhile, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, based on the 2013 Nintendo 3DS title from Next Level Games, sold 1.19 million units. It launched on June 27th for Nintendo Switch, thus achieving that milestone within three days, so it should be interesting to see its performance in the long term. You can read our review for our thoughts.

Nintendo’s Princess Peach: Showtime! is also confirmed to have sold over 1.3 million units since launching on March 22nd (up from 1.22 million sold as of March 31st). Check out our review here.

What I found most surprising going back to Luigi’s Mansion 2 over a decade on from when I first played it was just how full of personality it was, and how much attention to detail it boasted. That has, of course, become a hallmark of this franchise by this point, but with Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon having been a 3DS game, I had convinced myself that it did not have the same kind of absurd detail and charm in its environments, animations, and more that Luigi’s Mansion 3 did. And while that is technically true, it does have a lot more of that going on than I remembered.

"Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is bursting to the seams with little flourishes and more, making each room an absolute joy to explore."

From watching Luigi react to the things around him with hilarious animations and voice lines to marveling at just how many different objects there are in each room, how different they all look, how many of them you can interact with, and how differently so many of them behave when you do- Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is bursting to the seams with all of these little flourishes and more, making each room an absolute joy to explore. And of course, beyond those visual flourishes, there’s plenty else going on that makes exploration and digging deep into each environment an absolute joy.

Take, for instance, the fact that Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD gives you a handful of different ways to interact with your surroundings. You start off with just the ability to use your Strobulb, which is a flashlight that can stun ghosts, and Luigi’s trusty Poltergust, his iconic ghost-sucking vacuum cleaner, and over time, begin to acquire more abilities- like a dark light that is capable of revealing doors and objects in the environment that have been hidden away by pesky ghosts. Your arsenal of tools is ultimately a compact one, but each one lets you do different things, and figuring out which tool you’re required to use to deal with whatever puzzle you’re faced with is always a fun time.

Your tools are only one half of the puzzle though, because just as important to the bulk of Luigi’s Mansion 2’s enjoyment is how things in your surroundings react to what you’re doing. Using your vacuum cleaner on a ceiling fan might cause it to spin really fast, revealing a secret compartment above you, while flashing Luigi’s Strobulb on a wall safe can open it up and spit out bucketloads of money, which is used to level up and gain new abilities. Tugging on a rope with your Poltergust could cause a trapdoor to open up, which in turn could lead you to a previously inaccessible room, while using your dark bulb on a painting could cause a hidden gem to pop out.

Every single room in each of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s many haunted mansions is absolutely stuffed to the brim with tiny little details and flourishes, begging to be poked and podded so it can gleefully burst open like a pinata, revealing its delightful and charming host of varied animations, secrets, collectibles, and what have you. It’s a wonder that the game is able to keep coming up with new ideas on this front across the length of its experience, because there really is a never-ending string of delightful secrets to find, puzzles to solve, and collectibles to hunt down, among other things.

"It’s a wonder that the game is able to keep coming up with new ideas, because there really is a never-ending string of delightful secrets to find, puzzles to solve, and collectibles to hunt down, among other things."

Combat is almost just as enjoyable. Once again, a large part of the fun is down to how much variety the game boasts- chiefly in the enemies you face. Many of these will, of course, be familiar to series fans, but there’s a host of different ghosts that you’ll be coming across throughout the game. Each comes with unique attributes and strengths, so you have to meaningfully change up your strategy based on which ghosts you’re faced with. Some like to hide in different objects in the environments, so you have to find them first before you can defeat them. Some might be wearing shades, which means you can’t stun them with your Strobulb before you’ve removed their shades with your vacuum. Some might be big brutes who don’t much care for hiding, and on account of their larger health pool, prefer to just take swings at you.

Dealing with each ghost requires you to do different things, and from what they look like to how they animate to the things that you have to do to defeat them, there’s always an incredible amount of variety on offer, making every encounter feel fun- something that, as you might imagine, is especially true for the boss fights at the end of each mansion. Unlike the original 3DS title, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD also introduces the twin-stick controls that Luigi’s Mansion 3 was built around, which means movement and combat are both significantly more intuitive. Aiming your Poltergust or flashlight around while you’re using it can still be a bit finnicky, especially when the game requires some degree of precision (which can happen from time to time), but by and large movement and combat are much improved in this remaster.

One area where Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD may frustrate some players is how it’s structured. This is a mission-based game, which means you’re heading out into whatever mansion you’re currently on for missions from Profession E. Gadd’s lab and instantly coming back as soon as you’ve completed your objective. You sequentially move through missions, get to the boss fight at the end of the mansion, and then move on to the next mansion, your ultimate goal being to restore the Dark Moon and restore peace to Evershade Valley and its enraged ghostly denizens.

For my part, I enjoyed the game’s structure, because I feel it ultimately strikes a good balance between letting me take things at my own pace and do plenty of optional exploration and collectible hunting, while still being an experience with forward-momentum that is based around sequential, bite-sized (or semi-bite sized, depending on how you’re playing) missions. But if you’re looking for something that is more seamless and free-flowing, in vein of Luigi’s Mansion 3, the structure here may leave you frustrated. Meanwhile, outside of its substantial campaign – which can easily take you upwards of 20 hours, depending on how extensively you’re engaging with its optional content – Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD also brings back the co-op tower-based multiplayer mode ScareScraper, and though it’s fun to play, it’s bafflingly missing local co-op, so the only way to play it is with multiple Switches and copies of the game.

"If you’re looking for something that is more seamless and free-flowing, in vein of Luigi’s Mansion 3, the structure here may leave you frustrated."

As a remaster, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is a solid effort- at least as far as its visuals are concerned. Developer Tantalus Media – who also worked on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD and Skyward Sword HD – has done a solid job of touching up the visuals of what was originally a 3DS title, with character models, environments, animations, and what have you sporting an impressive level of detail, sheen, and polish. Is it anywhere close to the level of Luigi’s Mansion 3? Well, no- but given the fact that Luigi’s Mansion 3 is flat-out one of the best-looking games on the Switch, maybe that’s too high a bar for a remaster of a decade-plus old 3DS title to reach.

At the same time, it’s worth pointing out that Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s launch price – $60 – might seem a bit steep to some, given the fact that outside of its quality-of-life improvements, tweaked controls, and upgraded visuals, there’s not much else here on offer- no new content, no additional mode, not even any new art of music to check out in a gallery. While I do fully recommend Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD to anyone who has never played the original game before, or even to anyone who has played it but still has a hankering to go back to it, not everyone may want to pay full-price for it.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch.

As reported by VGC, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD was developed by Tantalus Media. The Australian studio is known for its work on porta and remasters, and has worked on multiple of them with Nintendo in particular in the past, including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD for the Nintendo Switch.

That, of course, means Next Level Games – the studio that originally developed Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon for the 3DS – isn’t responsible for its Switch remaster, which begs the question what it is that it is currently working on. Perhaps the studio has Luigi’s Mansion 4 in the pipeline? One can always hope.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD launches for the Nintendo Switch on June 27.

The acclaimed action-adventure title originally launched for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, and though it wasn’t quite as well received or as much of a whopping commercial success as Luigi’s Mansion 3 turned out to be, it was an impressive critical and commercial success in its own right. How long it’ll be before we get to see the next mainline Luigi’s Mansion game remains to be seen, but just as Nintendo remade the first game for the 3DS in its final stages before Luigi’s Mansion 3 came out, the company is preparing to remaster and re-release Luigi’s Mansion 2 for the Switch in its final leg before the series’ next mainline instalment launches, whenever that is.

Here, then, we’re going to take a look at a few key details you should know about the looming launch of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD.

STORY DETAILS

Unsurprisingly, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD doesn’t put an awful amount of emphasis on storytelling, though it does have plenty of narrative elements in place that fans of the series will find familiar. The game’s story kicks off with the arrival of the notorious King Boo in the Evershade Valley, which causes the Dark Moon to shatter, which in turn causes all of the ghosts that reside within the valley to go berserk and lose control of themselves. Amidst the crisis, good old Professor E. Gadd summons everyone’s favourite ghost hunter Luigi to the valley, where it once again falls to him to deal with all of the ghosts and put things right.

EVERSHADE VALLEY’S MANSIONS

Back when it came out, the core hook for Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon was that it allowed players to traverse not one, not two, but five whole haunted mansions, each bringing their own unique themes, challenges, enemies, and more. In the upcoming remaster, all five mansions will obvious be returning. There’s Gloomy Manor, your regular, starter haunted mansion; Haunted Towers, towering structures built around a massive tree, with out-of-control plantlife wreaking havoc everywhere; Old Clockworks, a factory that once used to produce clocks; Secret Mines, which are mines built inside of snowcapped mountains; and Treacherous Mansion, a huge and exotic mansion teeming with wondrous exhibits, terrifying ghosts, and more.

MISSIONS AND BOSSES

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD adopts a mission-based structure, tasking you with completing series of missions as you make your way deeper and deeper into each mansion. Of the five mansions in the game, four of them have five missions on offer each, with the remaining mansions coming with three missions. On top of that, each mansion also comes with its own optional, bonus mission, while the main missions of each mansion also culminate in a boss fight, from a terrifying, large spider in Gloomy Manor to a possessed staircase in the Haunter Towers.

POLTERGUST AND STROBULB

If you’ve played a Luigi’s Mansion game in the past, you’re going to be very familiar with its core, momento-to-moment gameplay loop, but for all the uninitiated, here’s a brief primer. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD will see Luigi dealing with ghosts primarily with his trusty weapon, the Poltergust 5000, which is a vacuum cleaner that sucks up ghosts. No, really, that’s literally what it is. Also returning is the Strobulb, which is a flashlight-esque device that you first need to use to stun ghosts with, after which they become vulnerable enough to be sucked up using the Poltergust.

PUZZLES AND ENVIRONMENTS

Sucking up ghosts is a huge part of the Luigi’s Mansion core gameplay loop, but just as crucial is exploring environments and solving puzzles. Hidden everywhere in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s mansions, you’ll find environmental puzzles that will task you with using your toolset of items, from using the Poltergust’s functions to manipular and carry objects to using the Strobulb to interact with things such as lights and switches, to even using the Dark Light device, which you can use to find objects otherwise hidden in environments, such as secret doors leading to hidden rooms.

SCARSCRAPER

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s 15-20 hour single player campaign is obviously going to be its primary attraction, but the game will also bring back the 3DS original’s fan-favourite multiplayer mode, ScareScraper. For those not aware, ScareScraper is a co-op mode where four players player as differently coloured Luigis and team up to progress through randomly generated floors of a haunted tower, finding different items, layouts, ghosts, and challenges on each floor. Whether the tower has a limited number of floors or designed as an endless gauntlet where you go as far as your skill will take you is something the game lets you decide, as well.

SCARESCRAPER OBJECTIVES

When you play ScareScraper, you and your squad will find one of four different kinds of challenges on each randomly generated floor, each throwing different hurdles your way. Hunter will task players with defeating all ghosts on the current floor of the tower, while Polterpup will have you chasing around and dealing with a very specific enemy type in ghost dogs, as its name suggests. There’s also Rush, in which players race each other to be the first to find the floor’s exit. Finally, Surprise randomly selects one of the other three objective types.

CO-OP

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s ScareScraper is, of course, all about capturing the quintessential co-op experience, as as you’d expect, it’s also going to let you decide how you want to play, too. Local co-op and online co-op will both be supported, so you can pair up with a player over the internet using Nintendo Switch Online as well.

VISUAL ENHANCEMENTS

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD isn’t a full-fledged remake like the first instalment received on he 3DS, but in making the transition from the 3DS to the Nintendo Switch, the game’s remaster is still making some noticeable technical upgrades. Based on what Nintendo has shown of the remaster so far, we can clearly expect a significant jump in visual quality on the Nintendo Switch, entailing everything from improved character models and animations to more detailed environments, sharper lighting and shadows, and more.

FILE SIZE

Games on the Nintendo Switch tend to be pretty small in size, especially compared to the overwhelming majority of most AAA (and even AA) console and PC releases Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, as a remaster of a decade-old 3DS game, is going to be even smaller. As per the game’s eShop listing, it will have a file size of just 3 GB. In comparison, 2019’s Luigi’s Mansion 3 has a file size of 7.4 GB. Then again, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a significantly better looking game than the upcoming remaster of its predecessor, so that gap doesn’t necessarily come as a huge surprise.

Luigi is on a quest to hunt down pieces of the Dark Moon in Evershade Valley, but with various haunted mansions to explore, it’s easier said than done. With the Poltergust 5000, players can vacuum up any wayward ghosts, though some need to be stunned first. The latter can come in handy for other enemies like mummies to disorient them.

Some ghosts encase Luigi or shoot puddles to slip him up, while the others scare him senseless. Of course, the Poltergust is also used for puzzle solving like manipulating gears, moving fans or creating balloons to reach higher levels. For those who want a break from the story, there’s the Scarecraper, which supports up to four players and offers unique missions to complete.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD launches on June 27th. Stay tuned for updates in the meantime.

The newest trailer for Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD serves as a setup for its story, showcasing the game’s intro. Set in the Evershade Valley, Luigi journeys through a number of different haunted mansions in search of the pieces of the Dark Moon, which was shattered by King Boo, sending the valley’s otherwise peaceful ghosts into a frenzy. Of course, Luigi has access to plenty of his trusty tools, including his Poltergust 5000 and plenty of assistance from Professor E. Gadd. Check out the trailer below.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD launches for the Nintendo Switch on June 27.

Developed by Next Level Games of Luigi’s Mansion 3 fame and based on Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon for the Nintendo 3DS, the remaster sees Luigi battling his nemesis King Boo once more. After the latter breaks the Dark Moon into five pieces, causing the ghosts of Evershade Valley to go berserk, the plumber ventures to different mansions to collect them.

Each mansion offers unique themes, layouts and puzzles to solve. Luigi also has new gadgets like the Dark-Light Device to reveal hidden doors and objects. It also features co-op in the ScareScrapper, with four players working to clear randomly generated floors of ghosts. Stay tuned for more details on the Nintendo Switch version in the coming months.

Are you ready for a spooky summer full of
paranormal puzzles? Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD comes to#NintendoSwitch June 27th!https://t.co/IIsLpCS5Rc pic.twitter.com/o94BIm0sWx

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 10, 2024

At least that’s what reliable Nintendo leaker Pyoro seems to be hinting at over on Twitter. March 10, a.k.a. Mario Day, is coming up soon, and in a couple of recent tweets, the leaker suggested that updates on both Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD will be shared by Nintendo on the day, before also liking a tweet that pointed to the same.

Naturally, this has led to speculation about whether this means there’s another Nintendo Direct presentation coming up soon- but then again, Nintendo could also just drop new trailers for both games individually, as it has been known to do in the past.

Currently, neither Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door nor Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD have specific release dates – with the latter due out this Summer and the former at an unknown time this year – but hopefully we’ll have more details on that front in the coming days.

Also this one pic.twitter.com/YLrKEsz1IR

— Pyoro (@Pyoro_X) March 4, 2024

For starters, the remastered version of the game is dropping the original’s subtitle, and will instead be called Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. Its newest trailer showcases its enhanced and updated visuals, which might not be on the same level as something like Luigi’s Mansion 3, but do certainly look like a significant upgrade over the original 3DS version of the game (which looked pretty good in its own right).

The trailer also shows off several glimpses of gameplay, showing Luigi crossing paths with different kinds of ghosts, whipping out his trusty Poltergust and other gadgets, exploring different environments, and solving puzzles. Check it out below.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD launches for the Nintendo Switch sometime in Summer 2024.