Mario and Luigi Brothership

Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a 2024 role-playing video game developed by Acquire and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the sixth main installment in the Mario & Luigi series, following Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (2015), and is the first Mario & Luigi game for a home console. Following the appearance of a mysterious portal, Mario and Luigi, alongside other residents of the Mushroom Kingdom, find themselves transported to the world of Concordia, where they find themselves working to reunite the land after a dark force, Glohm, begins to separate and isolate its inhabitants in solitude.

In the game, players control the brothers to explore Concordia, solve puzzles and complete quests, while engaging enemies they encounter in turn-based combat. Brothership is a role-playing game that follows a similar format of previous games in the Mario & Luigi series. Players simultaneously control Mario and Luigi, as they explore the world of Concordia by visiting the islands of the shattered land in order to reconnect them to each other, whilst battling against a new group of enemies causing havoc, along the way encountering old friends and foes in the process.

Each of the brothers have their own buttons assigned to them for use with exploring the overworld and battling enemies. Exploration includes talking to non-player characters (NPCs), completing quests and solving puzzles, some of which are required to be solved in order to progress. In exploration, Brothership features a central hub called Shipshape Island which acts like a ship. Through this island, players can explore Concordia’s seas, moving between currents in order to find and explore islands and other points of interest via a cannon that can be used to launch Mario and Luigi towards them. On islands, the main focus is to find and reconnect it to Shipshape Island via a giant plug in the island’s lighthouse. 

Once accomplished, new areas on the island open up, with a fast-travel pipe system allowing players to move between the hub and all islands, as well as around each island. Brothership feature a unique game mechanic called “Luigi Logic”, which allows Luigi to act autonomously – either to interact with or collect items, or move him where he can be used to help with solving some of the game’s puzzles – or to come up with the series’ signature overworld moves that can help Mario and Luigi with exploration. Luigi Logic is also used in some boss fights. Alongside the main story, the player can also explore small islets for extra rewards, and undertake sidequests.

Mario and Luigi can also perform special Bros. Moves, including the UFO Spin and Bro Ball for traversal as well as Fire & Ice power-ups for Mario and Luigi respectively for puzzle-solving. One day in the Mushroom Kingdom, a mysterious portal appears and transports Mario, Luigi, and the kingdom’s inhabitants – including Princess Peach, the star sprite Starlow, Bowser, and Bowser Jr. – to the world of Concordia. After reuniting on Shipshape Island, Mario and Luigi befriend Connie, a Wattanist, who reveals how Concordia used to be one continent connected together by a large Uni-Tree and the energy of Connectar, until a dark force emerged and destroyed the tree, separating the land into islands.

Revealing she is working to create a new Uni-Tree on Shipshape, the brothers agree to help her reconnect the separated land with Shipshape, and are accompanied on their journey by Snoutlet, a pig-like Conductor. To reconnect the islands, the brothers seek out each island’s Lighthouse which can be used to bind the island to Shipshape and its Uni-Tree with a magical plug outlet. During their efforts to do so, the brothers reunite with Peach and Starlow, who decide to assist them on their quest.