Video Games
‘Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’ Announced for the Switch, Coming June 27
Nintendo fans enjoying yesterday’s Mar10 Day were treated to the announcement that Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD has a release date. Previously revealed last September during the Nintendo Direct, this HD remaster of 2013’s Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon arrives June 27 on the Nintendo eShop. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD joins 2019’s Luigi’s Mansion 3 on the Switch, though we’re still waiting on the one that started it all to make its way over to complete the trilogy.
Luigi is back with his Poltergust 5000 as he seeks to retrieve the missing shards of the Dark Moon. The story goes that the Dark Moon that hangs over Evershade Valley seems to have a calming effect on the ghosts that reside there, which Professor E. Gadd has been studying. But when the Dark Moon suddenly breaks apart and falls into the valley below, the once-friendly ghosts become hostile. Luigi must now restore the Dark Moon.
The shards of the Dark Moon are scattered across several distinct haunted mansions, each with their own puzzles to solve and ghosts to capture. Go for a high rating by using the Poltergust 5000 to suck up ghosts, as well as blow air to search every nook and cranny of the mansions. And if you’d like, you can also team up with up to three players (either locally or online) to take on the challenges of the ScareScraper, a haunted building teeming with ghosts and challenges not found in the main adventure.
Video Games
Bloody Body Horror Revealed in ‘Stellar Blade: Blood Rain’, Currently in Development [Trailer]
Shift Up has shifted things dramatically from 2024’s action-adventure game Stellar Blade, offering up a body horror bonanza in the newly announced sequel, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain. The sequel is currently early in development, but if the trailer is any indication, players will be in for plenty of body horror.
Continuing the story from the original Stellar Blade, Blood Rain will star a new protagonist named Eve. Earth has been abandoned, and what is left of humanity has fled to a Colony in outer space.
Shift Up had mentioned during a Q&A following its latest earnings presentation last month that development on Blood Rain (which was still unannounced at the time) was progressing smoothly, and was on track to meet their targeted quality standards.
Shift Up stated that with this new title it would be transitioning to a first-party service model, effectively moving away from the restrictions the game experienced with original publisher Sony, which had the game under an exclusivity agreement for the PlayStation 5. “This will allow us to lead marketing strategies that fully reflect the distinctive identity of the Stellar Blade IP, and we expect to communicate the unique appeal of its universe to players more directly and effectively.”
Whether this means that Xbox Players will finally be able to play the original game (or its sequel) is still not clear. Meanwhile, Stellar Blade is reportedly being ported to the Nintendo Switch 2, but no official confirmation has been made.