Nintendo seems to be going all in on remasters and ports for the Nintendo Switch, but the Luigi's Mansion series has not yet followed suit. Luigi's Mansion 3 brought the series back to Nintendo's home consoles after its brief stint on handheld, and it proved very popular. It was a critical and commercial success, but there has been no news about further ghost-busting adventures with Luigi since. It seems like Nintendo does not have plans to capitalize on the success of the third game, which would be a strange choice.
Luigi's Mansion 3 is currently the only game in the series on the Switch, with its two predecessors left to gather dust on earlier Nintendo consoles. Mario got to celebrate his 3D platformer history with Super Mario 3D All-Stars, but his brother also deserves to celebrate his spooky spin-off series. It would be a shame if Nintendo chose not to revisit this unique series on Switch, and now would be a great time to do it.
The Luigi's Mansion Series is Gathering Dust on 3DS
The Luigi's Mansion series has been around since 2001, yet and it has only seen three mainline entries so far. The first game was a launch title for the Nintendo GameCube, serving as the first Mario game to release on it prior to Super Mario Sunshine. It instead brought Mario's brother Luigi to a spooky mansion filled with ghosts. What followed was a zany adventure that made good use of the GameCube's hardware, and it quickly became one of the best-selling games on the console.
It took Nintendo until 2013 to deliver the next chapter in the Luigi's Mansion series, doing so on the Nintendo 3DS. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon continued the tale at a new series of mansions that were infested with ghosts. It was launched as part of Nintendo’s Year of Luigi, becoming one of the bestselling games on the 3DS. Its assets would also be used to create an official Luigi's Mansion arcade cabinet.
Nintendo ended up capitalizing on the popularity of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon by launching a remaster of the original game on 3DS in 2018. This meant Luigi's Mansion re-released near the end of the 3DS' lifespan, just one year before the third entry would launch on Switch. Many players had already been moving over to the Switch at that point, so a lot of fans chose to skip out on Luigi's Mansion 3DS altogether.
While each Luigi's Mansion game seems to become one of the highest-selling games on its respective console, Nintendo does not seem to want to capitalize on this success. If the current trend of delays between releases continues, players will probably have to wait until 2025 at the earliest for the next one.
That seems like too long of a wait for another Luigi's Mansion game, but it does not have to be. The first two games are sitting on 3DS waiting to be ported over. Luigi's Mansion has already received a facelift since its original release, and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon would only need a few visual upgrades to stand up against its successor. Both titles were very successful when they first released, and Luigi's Mansion 3 showed there is still a hunger for this spooky spin-off series. It would be a missed opportunity if Nintendo just allowed the games to sit on the 3DS untouched, and now is the time to release them before a follow-up to the Switch is announced.
Luigi's Mansion 3 is available now on Switch.
