By now, you might have seen some stories about the team behind Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. While the original 3DS release in 2013 was made by the talented Canadian-based studio Next Level Games, for the game's high-definition Switch version, it seems Nintendo has once again called on the services of the Australian developer Tantalus Media.
The Aussie Nintendo fansite Vooks.net highlighted this in its review of the game, with multiple outlets like IGN and VGC also confirming this studio's major involvement in the project just a day out from the game's official launch.
Tantalus is the same team behind the 2021 Switch release The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, and it also worked on Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U. Apart from Luigi's second outing, the studio has recently assisted with series such as Age of Empires, Cities: Skylines,Stellaris and games like LEGO 2K Drive. And earlier in the Switch's lifecycle it helped out with Sonic Mania and RiME.
This latest studio reveal ahead of an official first-party launch follows comments from a Nintendo representative recently, who reiterated the company wouldn't be revealing its partner developers until games were released and players saw the credits roll.
In saying this, it looks like we might already know the team partnering with Nintendo on Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, and Mario & Luigi fans may have an idea of the studio behind the new release Mario & Luigi: Brothership - with Nintendo also revealing some of the "original developers" are involved in this project.
What are your thoughts about all of this? Have you played Tantalus Media's previous work? Let us know in the comments.
[source vooks.net]
Comments 29
I'm kind of surprised Next Level themselves didn't do it. Seems like a pretty quickie flip and it's been a couple years since they've done anything.
Skyward Sword and this were both surprisingly 60 USD. Cool to see Nintendo bringing games back, but it'd be nice to see new content or lower price.
Maybe Tantalus Media requires premium price for their remasters?
@Lizuka they’re probably focused entirely on whatever the next big project from them is after Strikers Battle League. My bet is it’s Luigi’s Mansion 4.
You can’t just put Tantalus and Skyward Sword in the same subtitle without making a Tentalus joke.
@Lizuka One might hope Next Level is busy crafting Luigi's Mansion 4, or a new Punch-Out game, or both. Either of those possible projects is probably a better use of the studio's time than a remaster. Nintendo needs to keep new projects coming alongside the remasters, so it has something more to remaster in the future!
Ideally Next Level is developing something outside of the Mario universe!
There are some theories that next level might be developing the new Mario and Luigi game. No idea if that’s true or not, but if it is, that would explain why they wouldn’t be handling this port
Obviously NLG is working on Metroid Prime: Federation Force HD in preparation of Metroid Prime 4.
All jokes aside, I'm guessing it's Luigi's Mansion 4.
@Alpha008 Most rumors are suggesting M&L is being done by ILCA.
Tantalus?
No wonder it looks like poopy!
They messed up Twilight Princess as well!
@Lizuka that… would be an interesting choice… unusual too, ILCA are more associated with the Pokémon company rather than Nintendo proper.
(Please note, PMC is it’s own entity, it’s part owned by Nintendo but not flat out Nintendo itself, if anyone wanted to say “but the Pokémon company IS Nintendo)
So it would be surprising to see them working on it. Not an impossibility, but definitely unusual
@Alpha008 GameFreak also makes non-Pokémon games. Even on Switch.
@Alpha008 actually ILCA is now more associated with Bandai Namco than TPC. They were lead developers on the latest Idolmaster game, One Piece Odyssey and Sand Land. They even work on the next Ace Combat entry.
However, the deal here is that ILCA seemingly has the most ex-Alphadream developers than any other studio
Why the secrecy behind the developers? I mean does it really matter?
@datamonkey the secrecy is due to Nintendo wanting everything to seem like it's coming FROM Nintendo as a Nintendo product made by Nintendo proper. They want it all to feel equal.
@honestgamer Aren't there rumors that they were making a new F-Zero?
@Alpha008 Next Level Games is definitely not developing Mario & Luigi: Brothership as there are no previous Alphadream devs working there. ILCA on the other hand has a lot of previous Alphadream devs.
@PikminMarioKirby Nintendo are the ones that decide what the price will be so that's not it
Skyward Sword HD was great so I have no doubt Luigi's Mansion 2 HD will be as well and even more so now that we know it's from the same developers.
And yep, like others here I'd guess the folks at Next Level are busy making a new game - a new Luigi's Mansion, Punch Out or whatever else - and I'm looking forward to it whenever they're ready to show it!
@Spider-Kev You are right they messed up TP HD so bad everyone talked about it at the time but most people here are maybe too young to know.
@datamonkey secrecy is good for sales, If we know they were behind Skyward Sword before release no one would have bought it, but it turned out fine I wonder how much involved they were.
Going to be honest, there is ONE reason why Nintendo is hiding who's developing what game. That reason is Arzest.
@Samalik There was one rumor that they're remastering or remaking F-Zero GX, yes
@BTB20 It's not impossible that they could be co-developing the project to some extent (Retro Studios codeveloped Mario Kart 7, so it's not impossible for Nintendo's first-party Western studios to work with Japanese studios)...just not the most likely thing. ILCA's a large studio, but they also just released Sand Land and One Piece Odyssey not too long ago, while they've also been working on Pokemon projects (they contributed to Scarlet/Violet) and a new Ace Combat. Definitely seems like they've been pretty busy, whereas Next Level's only released a new Mario Strikers this decade, and supposedly around half of the team credited on Luigi's Mansion 3 didn't even contribute to it. We'll just have to wait and see, but it's hard to imagine a better studio for AlphaDream alumni to collaborate with between their animation prowess (which Brothership certainly rivals even if they're not involved) and background developing Luigi's Mansion, which lends itself well to designing RPG areas and puzzles (especially with LM3 having many puzzles built around using two characters together).
@PikaPhantom True, they could be codeveloping it. Nothing speaks against that. But they are unlikely to be the main developer.
@JohnnyMind God, I'd love a new Punch Out from them, I remember it fondly, it's been 15 years. Whatever they do with Luigi's Mansion 4 would be welcomed too, LM3 was lovely.
@Kelnos I've never played Wii Punch Out myself, only watched others play it so I'd take even just a port/remaster of that... at first, because I really hope we'll eventually see a new one!
Have no doubt we'll get a new Luigi's Mansion at some point and yes, I'd absolutely welcome it as well since LM3 was lovely, indeed!
@Ruthchild Out of curiosity, what exactly was broken with Twilight Princess HD? Also "If we know they were behind Skyward Sword before release no one would have bought it" What does that mean? Intrigued to know. Mainly as to who "we" is. Feel free to elaborate...
@WiltonRoots We Zelda fans who bought TP HD, there were threads about TP HD with thousands posts in Resetera and gamefaqs Wiiu board and neogaf if these people know about Skyward dev beforehand the negative backslash alone would have hurt Skyward sword so much.
@Ruthchild Ah okay, didn't bother me in the slightest, I'm a Zelda fan, I never go on those sites so as far as I'm concerned none of what was said on there even happened. All these sites are niche hardcore crowds which don't really have any bearing on the outside world. People in bubbles talking to other people in bubbles.
I never talk about this place outside of here to my friends, they just aren't interested. If I said it was kicking off on Neogaf they'd glaze over completely.
TPHD played fine, performed well, the gamepad smoothed out inventory and they toned down the urine filter compared to what I'd seen of the Wii comparisons. Skipped that generation completely due to being far too busy doing other things.
Skyward Sword HD played like a dream too. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...