Nintendo Acquires Next Level Games

In a surprising move, Japanese video game company Nintendo has acquired Canadian studio Next Level Games on Tuesday. Together they released games for GameCube, Nintendo 3DS, Wii and Nintendo Switch consoles over the years.

Without revealing much detail of their terms, Nintendo released an official statement saying a few owner-directors at Next Level were interested in selling their shares to them and make all of their resources available for future endeavor.

Next Level Games most recently worked on 2019 action-adventure game Luigi's Mansion 3, a title that received critical-acclaim and sold more than 7 million copies worldwide by November of last year, becoming a commercial success.

Other than leaving their mark on Luigi's Mansion franchise, Next Level has worked for Nintendo by developing games like Metroid Prime: Federation Force, Punch-Out!!, Super Mario Strikers and its follow-up sequel Mario Strikers Charged.

Fans have really been expecting to see a new entry in Mario Strikers series for long and maybe even more Luigi's Mansion games. Following acquisition, development process is much likely to speed up and better quality work is expected.

With approval from shareholders, Nintendo is expected to officially close the deal on March 1, 2021. Every development asset at NLG will become accessible for parent company and probably start working on their latest project very soon.