With the Switch 2 looming over us, it makes sense that Nintendo’s core teams have moved on and are busy making software for the upcoming device, but despite that, there still seems to be a bunch of first-party Nintendo titles coming out for the current Nintendo Switch… so just who is behind them?! Well, now we know!

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD

Tantalus are behind the upcoming Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, doing their best to update the textures, sound and character models in this 3DS classic, originally developed by Next Level Games!

Tantalus have helped with titles such as Sonic Mania and Cities: Skylines, and most notably were behind 2021’s HD re-release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Skyward Sword HD was applauded by many upon its release, for its dashing looks and quality of life updates, as well as overcoming the mammoth task of making the game playable with a traditional control scheme. Early reviews of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD are also looking promising, so perhaps Tantalus will become a regular Nintendo partner when it comes to polishing old gems from their back catalogue?

Above: Tantalus also created Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U!

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD

Retro Studios were originally behind Donkey Kong Country Returns, but we all know they’re busy at work creating Metroid Prime 4, so it has been left to Forever Entertainment to bring the beloved ape into the HD realm.

Forever Entertainment have quite a history with Nintendo’s old rival SEGA, bringing classic SEGA titles such as House of the Dead and Panzer Dragoon to the Nintendo Switch, completely remade from the ground up.

Hints to this partnership could perhaps be found back in 2021, when Nintendo gave financial support to Forever Entertainment, which seemed like an odd move to make at the time, but makes sense in retrospect.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership

Nintendo has revealed that "some of the original developers who worked on the franchise are involved" in regards to the upcoming Mario & Luigi title, but they’ve not said exactly who the developer is.

The current most popular guess among the online community is ILCA, the developer behind Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, which we were quite fond of, and you can check out our review of it here.

It seems that many of the staff from the now defunct AlphaDream, the original developers of the Mario & Luigi series, now work at ILCA, so it would make sense if these rumours turned out to be true.

But of the three titles mentioned in this article, Mairo & Luigi is still the most mysterious in regards to its developer, and the only one that still has no official developer to its name.

Above: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond? More like Brilliant Water!

What do you make of Nintendo’s new approach to supporting a console at its later stages of life? I’m personally impressed at the balancing act they have done so far, keeping a steady stream of quality titles on the current system while not tying up their core developers. Handing some of their classic titles to other developers seems like a great move, especially as I remember the dark days of the GameCube in 2006, or the Wii in 2012.

The GameCube in 2006 was dire, with most of the ‘big’ releases that year being movie tie-in games like Over the Hedge. Twilight Princess couldn’t come soon enough! It was interesting seeing the Nintendo magazines of the time struggle to come up with cover images each month!

In the summer of 2012, Nintendo’s big release was something called ‘Quiz Party’, it was all over their social media and official websites, and it was nothing more than a relatively cheap third-party quiz game, hosted by a famous late 80s game-show host. The following months were even more barren until the Wii U finally arrived.

Rest assured, the dying days of a Nintendo console have never been so great!