Most video game protagonists walk with purpose. Nathan Drake has a particular swagger as he strolls through ancient tombs, while Leon Kennedy holds himself with the confidence of a trained professional amid the horrors of a zombie infestation. Luigi isn’t like that. Mario’s bumbling brother is always slightly on edge, and that has never been more apparent than in Luigi’s Mansion 3, which launches on, October 31st, on the Nintendo Switch.


Professor E Gadd and new clone Gooigi are among the inventive innovations aiding Mario’s timid twin. A breath of life for the hunt-and-chase format.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is part of a rare breed of slapstick comedy games. Its humor doesn’t come from witty writing or great jokes; it’s enjoyable exclusively because it’s fun watching Luigi suffer. As the name implies, this is technically the third Luigi’s Mansion game.


In this game, the ghosts haunting him in Luigi’s Mansion 3 are quite real. His panicked muttering as he turns a doorknob, and his habit of jumping at every little bump in the night, are justified. He never becomes less terrified, even as he clears floor after floor of ghosts in a haunted hotel.
Ghosts fill the room with an otherworldly glow whenever they appear. I live for every single cinematic, which felt like they could have been snippets from a beautifully animated movie starring Luigi and his ghost dog, Polterpup. It’s another prime example of Nintendo’s ability to make its own games sing on hardware that tends to be much less powerful than the competition.


Luigi uses many of the same tools from previous Luigi’s Mansion games. His Poltergust, a backpack with a vacuum cleaner attachment, can suck up pretty much anything: trash, sand, or ghosts. It can rip curtains from walls or spin large valves to change water levels. Reversing the flow of air allows me to blow things away, or shoot objects stuck in its craw at obstacles or enemies.

The game even rewards my most chaotic instincts. I saw a huge tuba and thought, “Will it make noise if I blow air through it?” Hell yes it did, but doing so also rewarded me with a shower of cash.


Next Level Games continues its strong tradition of granting Luigi far more depth than his superstar older brother, even if he is always doomed to keep getting scared for our enjoyment.