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Luigi's Mansion developer Next Level Games fully acquired by Nintendo

Next Level Games has been working on first-party Nintendo titles for years, but now Nintendo has acquired 100% ownership of the collaborating developer.

TJ Denzer

January 5, 2021 7:05 AM

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Next Level Games has been a large part of Nintendo’s core gaming history for quite a while. Their fruitful relationship began with the development of Mario soccer spinoff Super Mario Strikers in 2005 and they’ve been working together ever since on first-party titles such as the popular Luigi’s Mansion franchise. Now, Nintendo and Next Level are taking that business relationship even further. It was recently announced that Nintendo has acquired 100% ownership of Next Level Games.

Nintendo made the announcement of its acquiring of the longtime collaborative developer in a press release on January 5, 2021. In the release, Nintendo announced it would be taking “100% ownership of outstanding shares of Next Level Games Inc.”

The statement goes on to say that the overall acquisition of Next Level Games by Nintendo marks an effort to secure an exclusive partnership of game development from the studio for the foreseeable future.

Luigi’s Mansion has been the primary focus of Next Level Games over previous years with Luigi’s Mansion 3 having gained much love across the industry and certainly here at Shacknews as well. It didn’t take home awards in Year of the Games 2019, but Luigi’s Mansion 3 was still a constant subject of affection in our conversations, and it got even better in 2020 with the launch of multiplayer DLC packs. Likewise, Next Level Games' other titles for Nintendo such as Super Mario Strikers for GameCube and the Punch-Out!! remake for Wii have brought years of joy.

With Next Level Games becoming an official part of the Nintendo family, we’re looking forward to seeing what further gaming goodness comes out of the strengthened relationship of the two groups. Stay tuned to Shacknews as we keep an eye out for what comes next.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.