Mario & Luigi: Brothership Developer Reveals Surprising Alternate Name They Couldn’t Use

Coming up with a name for Mario & Luigi: Brothership proved to be a difficult task for Nintendo and developer Acquire. In total, the two companies came up with more than 100 potential subtitles for the game, before settling on Brothership. Thus far, the two companies have been quiet about what names were under consideration, but a new interview with Nintendo Dream (translation via Nintendo Everything) has revealed a surprising option that was considered. According to producer Akira Otani, he initially wanted to use the word “wonder” in the name, but was forced to reconsider as a result of Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

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“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).”

Super Mario Bros. Wonder was released in October 2023, about one year before the release of Mario & Luigi: Brothership. Acquire got beat to the punch, but it seems that things worked out for the best. Super Mario Bros. Wonder proved to be a very fitting title for the 2D Mario game, and helped to convey the Wonder Flower mechanic to audiences. Meanwhile, Brothership ended up working on two levels for the RPG. In addition to conveying the game’s ocean setting, it also helped describe the relationship between the two title characters.

“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,” Otani told Nintendo Dream. “It’s also used as a word to mean friendship, like ‘friendship.’”

Past Mario & Luigi games have had different names in the U.S. and Europe compared to Japan. The first game in the series was titled Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga in the west, and “Mario & Luigi RPG” in Japan, a naming convention that would carry on for most of the sequels. Mario & Luigi: Brothership marks the first time that the title in the U.S. and Europe was the same as it was in Japan, which is a testament to the fact that the developers came up with something original and memorable.

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Mario & Luigi: Brothership was one of Nintendo’s major first-party games for the holiday season this year, alongside Super Mario Party Jamboree and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Nintendo’s early 2025 plans for Switch have mostly hinged on remasters, with Donkey Kong Country Returns HD coming in January, and Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition in March. Metroid Prime 4 and Pokemon Legends: Z-A will both be released sometime next year, but neither game has a release date, as of this writing. We should learn a lot more over the next few weeks, including Nintendo’s plans for its next video game system, tentatively titled “Switch 2.”

Have you checked out Mario & Luigi: Brothership yet? Do you think “Brothership” was a fitting title? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!