Nintendo Considered Giving Up On ‘Mario & Luigi’ Before Approaching Acquire

After the sad closure of long-time Mario & Luigi developer AlphaDream, many fans had given up hope that a new entry in the franchise would see the light of day.

Now, according to a new ‘Ask the Developer’ feature, it seems even Nintendo was close to throwing in the towel before approaching Acquire to commence co-development on Mario & Luigi: Brothership. The interview gathers Akira Otani and Tomoki Fukushima from Nintendo EPD alongside director Haruyuki Ohashi and designer Hitomi Furuta from Acquire and delves into the conception and development of the game ahead of its launch earlier this year.

When asked about the fan response after such a lengthy period between new releases, Otani said the following:

“Of course, for a long time, we’d been having a number of internal discussions about a new instalment in the series following Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. We needed to aim for something new that would keep up with hardware advancements while maintaining the appeal of the classic Mario & Luigi games. It wasn’t easy to achieve both at the same time… We kept trying various things, but there was a time when we thought it might not be possible to make any more games in the series and considered giving up.

“There were a lot of discussions, and eventually we decided to reach out to Acquire. After speaking a number of times with Ohashi-san, I felt that Acquire might be able to realise our dream of making Mario & Luigi in 3D, so we agreed to start joint development.

“Of course, it was also important to keep that “Mario & Luigi-like” feeling, so we also had some former AlphaDream (4) staff members who were involved in the development of previous titles in the series join the project.”

Phew, that’s good news then! Of course, whether Acquire collaborate with Nintendo again in the future is currenty up in the air after reports emerged of Sony’s intention to acquire Kadokawa Corporation, the parent company of developer Acquire. Still, we’ll treat this as a nice little success story for now, and we’re thrilled to see Mario & Luigi return on the Switch.

It’s worth checking out the whole interview, if you can. Designer Furuta also talks about how the team initially went with an “edgier, more rugged” look for Mario during early development, but was advised by Nintendo to make the visuals more identifiable for fans of the series.