Next Level Games President Douglas Tronsgard Steps Down
Douglas Tronsgard has announced his retirement as CEO of Next Level Games – the studio behind Luigi's Mansion 3. He acted as the CEO of the Vancouver based developer for over 20 years until it was acquired by Nintendo last year. He was responsible for games like Punch Out!!, Mario Strikers Charged, Metroid Prime: Federation Force, and the previous Luigi's mansion game.
In a statement to VGC, he said, "After over 20 years in the Video Game Industry, I am happy to announce my retirement,” he said in a statement. “I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who helped me on my journey to get here. A special thank you to Nintendo for believing in me and Next Level Games. It’s truly been my honour to be a part of NLG’s incredible history. I look forward to a new chapter in my life that should involve lots of travelling with my wife."
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As for Next Level Games, the studio is currently working on Mario Strikers Battle League, which will be coming to Nintendo Switch on June 10. The game will feature eight-player local co-op, an online club mode for up to 20 players, new items, and new RPG mechanics.
The most popular game the studio has worked on is undoubtedly Luigi's Mansion 3 – in our review, we said that it had great humour, a good story, beautiful level design, and great co-op through Gooigi. But it was a relatively short title compared to the other Switch releases at the time.
Unlike the spree we've seen from Sony and Microsoft, acquisitions by Nintendo are few and far between. Next Level Games was an obvious choice, considering the long-standing relationship the two have had, and the number of games the studio has put out for them.
At the time of the acquisition, Nintendo released
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