Luigi's Mansion 3

Luigi's Mansion 3 is an action-adventure game, in which players control the character of Luigi from a fixed third-person perspective, as they capture ghosts across a large hotel setting. The game features two modes of gameplay – a single-player story mode, and a set of multiplayer game modes – in which ghost catching functions in the same manner as previous installments: players stun ghosts with Luigi's flashlight, snag them with his Poltergust, and weaken their health down to 0 in order to capture them.

Luigi, his pet ghost dog Polterpup, his brother Mario, Princess Peach and a group of Toads receive an invitation to the luxurious high-rise hotel of the Last Resort, and decide to visit it for a vacation. The princess and Mario are talking, the Toads are playing catch, and Luigi is sleeping with Polterpup. After arriving and settling in, Luigi awakens from a scream by the princess during the night to find the hotel deserted, transformed into a haunted building, and the others missing. He discovers that the hotel's ghostly owner, Hellen Gravely, had lured the group to the hotel as part of a trap by King Boo, whom she had freed from his imprisonment after Luigi's last ghost-catching adventure in Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. King Boo reveals he is enraged with Luigi and wants to end things with him once and for all. Learning that the others have been imprisoned in portraits, Luigi is forced to flee to avoid the same fate and narrowly escapes to the basement by using a laundry chute. With the help of his flashlight and Polterpup, who also avoided capture, Luigi explores the basement and comes across a car in the underground garage carrying a new Poltergust model G-00. Using it, Luigi makes his way to the lobby, following his ghost dog, and finds that Professor E. Gadd was also captured.

Searching the lobby floor, Luigi comes across his Dark Light bulb in a safe and uses it to free E. Gadd, who asks him to take him into the basement. Setting up a portable lab in the garage, E. Gadd explains how he had been tricked into visiting the hotel and was captured by Hellen, who stole his ghost collection from him to staff the building. Believing that Luigi's friends are likely trapped on the upper floors, E. Gadd recommends that Luigi finds the elevator buttons for the upper floor that had been taken from the main elevator after he secures two from a ghost he had defeated earlier. While exploring the floors, each featuring a different theme to them, Luigi is aided further by the professor with two new gadgets: the Virtual Boo, a device that allows E. Gadd to communicate with Luigi; and Gooigi, a doppelgänger of Luigi made of lime-green goo. Left with no choice, Luigi begins his search for the missing elevator buttons in order to visit each of the hotel's fifteen floors.

As Luigi makes his search, he comes across and defeats a variety of different ghosts while reclaiming the elevator buttons and rescuing the Toads from their portraits, which angers Hellen. After rescuing the Toads, he reaches the top floor where he confronts Hellen, who is furious about him capturing her staff and attacks him. He manages to capture her and rescue his brother. Luigi finds himself following Mario to the roof and finds Peach's portrait through his help. Upon freeing Peach, the group finds King Boo (who had long lost faith in Hellen and the ghosts' capabilities) waiting to deal with them. King Boo recaptures E. Gadd and the Toads in front of their faces, throwing them into a painting. King Boo swiftly imprisons everyone except for Luigi, who is saved at the last second by Polterpup. Luigi finds himself forced to defeat King Boo once again, aided by Gooigi. During the battle, an increasingly livid King Boo enlarges the portrait frame in an attempt to pull in the whole hotel with Luigi still on the roof. Luigi defeats King Boo and manages to recover the portrait moments before the hotel collapses into a ruined mess due to the battle. After freeing his friends from the portrait, the ghosts Luigi captured are released and slowly return to being friendly after King Boo's control over them fades away after the large gem from his crown vanishes. E. Gadd, seeing them upset that the hotel was destroyed, elects for the group to build a new hotel, whereupon Luigi and his friends depart after its grand reopening. King Boo is also shown to have been imprisoned next to Hellen. Depending on how many coins Luigi collected, the hotel will be a different size. Luigi then returns to sleeping on the bus.

Luigi's Mansion 3 is developed by Next Level Games, who previously developed Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, and is published by Nintendo.[1] The game was originally planned as a Wii U title, with early prototypes introducing the Slam and Burst as new abilities; however, development started for the Nintendo Switch system in earnest following the completion of Next Level Games' Metroid Prime: Federation Force.[2] The change in setting from a mansion to a hotel was done so that players could have "three-dimensional exploration" with Kensuke Tanabe explaining that they "wanted players to be able to visualize how the hotel was set up".[3] Despite the new setting, the team deliberately made the choice for some of the settings to "make it as unexpected and even un-hotel-like as possible". The team noted that as long as they connected the settings through a traditional hotel setup they could get away with the diverse settings.[3] Some features that were previously present in or planned for the Nintendo 3DS remake of the original Luigi's Mansion were expanded on for the third installment, such as same screen local co-op play and the aforementioned new abilities.[4] Prior to the game's formal announcement, Luigi's new gadget, the Poltergust G-00, was shown for the first time in the August 2018 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Nintendo Direct as part of the trailer announcing Castlevania content for the game. The Poltergust G-00 was also incorporated into Luigi's moveset, now being able to grab opponents from a distance with the Suction Shot and pull opponents in with it for his Final Smash.[5]

Luigi's Mansion 3 was announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation on September 13, 2018, with the title at the time being listed as tentative and planned for release in 2019.[6] The game was a part of Nintendo's E3 2019 showcase, with a new trailer highlighting the premise, gameplay mechanics, and game modes, including the return of the online multiplayer mode, ScareScraper.[7] A demo was also made available to play on the show floor. Nintendo of America's Nate Bihldorff stated that the game's primary campaign would be longer than that of Dark Moon. He also stated that the finalized title was changed to a simple number "3" rather than a subtitle because the time gap between the second and third installments was much shorter to the point of calling the series an established franchise, as opposed to the 12-year gap between the first and second installments.[8] A new trailer shown during the September 4, 2019 Nintendo Direct showcased some areas of the hotel setting and debuted the ScreamPark, a new party-oriented game mode for up to eight players on a single console.[9] Luigi's Mansion 3 was released on October 31, 2019.[10]

Expansions to the multiplayer modes via downloadable content were announced in December 2019 and will roll out its contents in two waves. Both DLC packs each contain three new minigames for the ScreamPark, six new themed ghosts, three new cosmetic outfits, and three new floor themes for the ScareScraper. DLC Pack 1 was released on March 3, 2020, with DLC Pack 2 releasing on April 29, 2020.

Luigi's Mansion 3 received critical acclaim, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[11] Chelsea Stark of Polygon praised the use of Gooigi, as well as the variety of levels throughout the game, saying that "this is our scaredy-cat hero’s best adventure yet".[32] Ryan McCaffrey at IGN also praised the level design and variety, saying "Luigi's Mansion 3 is so fun, charming, and smartly designed that I hope we get more than three of these every 20 years."[22]

• Official website