Longstanding fans of the Mario & Luigi series can certainly share how uncertain the past decade has been. Prior to Mario & Luigi: Brothership, most were convinced that there would be no more installments to come. After all, the last new entry was released all the way back in 2015, and AlphaDream, the studio behind development for the games, went bankrupt in 2019. Yet despite this, Mario & Luigi did indeed see a new release nearly a decade later with Brothership, so how did that happen?
In an interview with Nintendo, the developers of Mario & Luigi: Brothership touched on the development process behind the scenes. Akira Otani, one of the producers for Brothership, shared a window into what the thoughts behind the future of the series were behind the scenes.
“That’s true. Of course, for a long time, we’d been having a number of internal discussions about a new installment 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 realize 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 staff members who were involved in the development of previous titles in the series join the project.”
Based on these comments, it seems like the primary reason the Mario & Luigi franchise underwent a long hiatus was due to a creative block in regards to keeping the series modern. How much of an impact the bankruptcy of AlphaDream actually had is hard to say, though it is very possible that internal conflicts related to this were merely omitted out of respect.
The remainder of the interview goes on to discuss challenges that were faced when it comes to transitioning the Mario & Luigi style into 3D. If you’re curious to read all that was discussed and to hear some insight from the new development studio Acquire, parts one and two are available to read right now! Parts three and four will become available tomorrow, December 5th, so be sure to check back then as well for more interesting tidbits behind Mario and Luigi’s latest adventure.
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Written by Abbie Maxwell
Lifelong Nintendo fangirl, Abbie holds a special place in her heart for video games. She has always strived to provide tips and tricks to make the experiences of those who share her passions that much better.
