Acquire Almost Called Brothership ‘Mario & Luigi Wonder’, But Nintendo Got There First
Just recently, developer Acquire collaborated with Nintendo to come up with “over 100 options” for the title of their new RPG, which eventually became Mario & Luigi: Brothership.
In a recent interview with Nintendo Dream (via Nintendo Everything), producer Akira Otani revealed that one of the potential titles considered was ‘Mario & Luigi Wonder’. However, this idea had to be scrapped when Super Mario Bros. Wonder was released on October 20, 2023.
“Actually, I wanted to add “Wonder” to the name at first. Like “Mario & Luigi Wonder”. But while we were making it, Super Mario Bros. Wonder came out first, so we couldn’t use that (laughs).
“So Nintendo and Acquire came up with a lot of ideas, and in the end, one of the candidates from Acquire was “Brothership”. The word “ship” means, of course, a ship, and this refers to the brothers’ base, the ship island. It’s also used as a word to mean friendship, like “friendship”.
“So if it’s about the bond between brothers, then it’s Brothership, and it has a double meaning, and I thought, “This is it!” It really fit perfectly, and although the title usually changes when it’s released in North America or Europe, this time it’s the same title.”
The implication that the development team was unaware of Super Mario Bros. Wonder until its release is intriguing, considering the involvement of long-time Mario veteran Takashi Tezuka as the Senior Supervisor for Mario & Luigi: Brothership and the producer for Super Mario Bros. Wonder. This suggests there must have been some communication between the teams during 2023.
Nevertheless, it’s amusing that the teams unintentionally overlapped in their title choices. Personally, ‘Mario & Luigi Wonder’ doesn’t sound as appealing, so it’s probably for the best that they settled on Brothership.
What do you think? Would ‘Mario & Luigi Wonder’ have made a good title for the game? Share your thoughts in the comments.
[source ndw.jp, via nintendoeverything.com]