Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon Message Board older than one year ago

Attendees of Nintendo's E3 2011 press conference seemed surprised by the announcement of Luigi's Mansion 2, though probably not as surprised as they were by the fact that they actually missed the heck out of the original. It's not that the game's loveable, suction-powered Gamecube predecessor was particularly forgettable, it's just that we've seen quite a few years (and a number of entries in Nintendo's other first-party franchises) since the franchise's inception.

Playing the new 3DS title stirred up even more nostalgia than the announcement trailer elicited. It's hard not to sympathize with Luigi, who shivers and creeps his way through countless palatial estates in search of mischievous phantasms. It's also hard to ignore the fact that Luigi's characteristically slow ghost hunt seems to have gotten even slower over the years.

More Luigi's Mansion is a great thing.

One of the smaller but welcomed announcements at Nintendo’s press conference today was Luigi’s Mansion 2 for 3DS.

At a roundtable with designer Shigeru Miyamoto this evening, he revealed Punch-Out!! and Super Mario Strikers developer Next Level Games is working on the game and is targeting a release early next year.

As for why Miyamoto decided to return to the Luigi’s Mansion games, he had a simple response.

“Really the reason we made this is because I wanted to,” he joked.

Good enough for me.

Next Level Games working on Luigi’s Mansion 2 was the second somewhat surprising reveal of an international developer working with Nintendo. Retro Studios, who has also partnered with Nintendo in the past, is contributing track designs to Mario Kart 3DS.

The newly revealed Luigi's Mansion 2 won't be developed internally by Nintendo, but by Canada's Next Level Games, the studio behind the Wii version of Punch-Out!. More »

More trailers. More ghosts. More vacuums.

Luigi's adventure continues in the sequel on Nintendo 3DS! Check out the announcement trailer from Nintendo's Press Conference at E3 2011!