Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon Switch release date, Nintendo Direct trailer - when is it coming out?

An upcoming remaster of Luigi's Mansion 2 was announced as part of yesterday's (21 June) Nintendo Direct presentation.

The "visually enhanced" edition of the game is to make its way to the Nintendo Switch in the coming year. While there isn't much additional information available at the moment, here is everything we do already know about Luigi's Mansion 2.

What is Luigi's Mansion 2?

Luigi's Mansion 2 - also known as Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon outside of Japan, Australia and Europe - released in 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS handheld console. It is the sequel to the original Luigi's Mansion game for the Nintendo GameCube, which itself was released in 2001.

The game combines action, exploration and puzzle-solving elements, and sees players control Luigi, the timid younger brother of Super Mario, as he explores haunted mansions filled with ghosts and solves puzzles to rescue his friends and capture the ghosts using the Poltergust 5000, a special vacuum cleaner-like device.

The story revolves around Professor E. Gadd, a recurring character in the Mario franchise, who calls upon Luigi to help him retrieve the pieces of the shattered Dark Moon, which is causing the ghosts in the mansions to become mischievous and hostile.

Players are challenged with navigating through multiple mansions, each with its own unique themes and challenges, to recover the pieces and restore peace.

The game received positive reviews from critics and players alike for its charming visuals, clever level design, and enjoyable gameplay, and was also praised for its humour, atmospheric environments and creative use of the 3DS’ hardware features.

The game's success led to the development of Luigi's Mansion 3, which was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2019, but now a reworked version of the second game is being given a second life on Nintendo's immensely popular Switch console.

What will be new in the remake?

Nintendo haven't revealed much more information on Luigi's Mansion 2 other than it will be released for Switch in 2024. As such, it's hard to say whether the company will be making any sweeping changes to the game, or whether it will be a faithful recreation of the original's charming ghost-hunting.

All Nintendo has said is that the new version of the game will be "visually enhanced". What exactly that means remains to be seen, but an extremely short teaser clip shows that it looks like Nintendo could be bringing the game in line with the visual style of 2019's Luigi's Mansion 3, which remains one of the most graphically pleasing games on the system to this day.

Nintendo have had recent successes with re-released classics. Earlier this year, it released Metroid Prime Remastered, a visually enhanced take on the 2002 GameCube classic that brought the game up to speed graphically while retaining its solid and somewhat timeless gameplay.

With remakes of Pikmin 1 and 2 also announced as part of the Direct presentation - as well as a remake of SNES classic Super Mario RPG - we could be in for a period of reworked Nintendo classics. That's no bad thing of course, with the iconic company releasing some of the best video games ever made over the past 40 years or so.

Will multiplayer make a return?

The original Luigi's Mansion 2 also offered a multiplayer mode called "ScareScraper", in which up to four players could team up locally or online to explore randomly generated floors of a haunted tower. Players had to work together to complete objectives, capture ghosts and find the exit within a time limit.

Whether that mode will be included in the upcoming remake remains to be seen, but a similar mode was included with Luigi's Mansion 3, so it is possible that Nintendo would want to revisit it.

When can I play it?

Again, Nintendo did not confirm a release date for Luigi's Mansion 2 on the Switch, saying only that it is coming "next year" - 2024.