Next Level Games is a Canadian video game development studio based out of Vancouver that was founded in October 2002 by former members of Black Box, who left that company following its acquisition by Electronic Arts earlier that year. After the release of their first title, a hockey game called NHL Hitz Pro, the young studio soon found themselves approached by Nintendo to use their expertise in sports games to develop a soccer/football game that would appeal to the Western market, resulting in the high-octane football/soccer title Super Mario Strikers.
While the company would continue to work with other publishers such as Activision and Sega on various licensed games and ports throughout the next few years, Next Level Games would continue to see most of its success come from its collaborations and growing relationship with Nintendo. As such, the decision was made in January 2014 to exclusively develop games for the publisher, which was eventually followed by Nintendo purchasing the developer in January 2021.
Games developed by Next Level Games:
- NHL Hitz Pro (Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2; 2004)
- The Sufferingnote (Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC; 2004)
- Mario Strikers series
- Super Mario Strikers (Nintendo GameCube; 2005)
- Mario Strikers Charged (Wii; 2007)
- Mario Strikers Battle League (Nintendo Switch; 2022)
- Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (PlayStation 2, Wii, Xbox 360; 2007)
- Ticket to Ride (Xbox Live Arcade; 2008)
- Jungle Speed (WiiWare; 2009)
- Punch-Out!! (Wii; 2009)
- Doc Louis' Punch Out!! (WiiWare; 2009)
- Transformers: Cybertron Adventures (Wii; 2010)
- Ghost Recon Wii (Wii; 2010)
- Captain America: Super Soldier (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; 2011)
- Luigi's Mansion series
- Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (Nintendo 3DS; 2013)
- Luigi's Mansion 3 (Nintendo Switch; 2019)
- Metroid Prime: Federation Force (Nintendo 3DS; 2016)
