This game is a action game. The gameplay of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is similar to its predecessor. The game focuses on the adventures of Luigi, who is sent by Professor E. Gadd, through teleportation, to explore various haunted mansions and capture ghosts using the Poltergust 5000, a specialized vacuum cleaner, which can also be used to gather treasure hidden in various rooms. Clearing the rooms of ghosts awards the player keys, which open access into deeper areas of the mansion. Shigeru Miyamoto stated that this game will be more puzzled-oriented than the original, and Toad will assist Luigi in accomplishing various goals. King Boo, who was the main antagonist in Luigi's Mansion, will also appear in the game, though no details of his role are currently known.
To capture a ghost, Luigi must first stun it using his stroboscope. While the original game only required the player to simply shine the light upon the ghost, in Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon the player instead charges the new stroboscope to release an intense burst of light that acts similar to a flashbang. When stunned, the ghost's hit points are exposed, allowing the player to vacuum and "wrestle" with the ghost to decrease its hit points until it is weak enough to be captured. Luigi can fight up to three ghosts simultaneously, but there is currently work being made in development to allow even more. While the original game utilized the second analog stick on the Nintendo GameCube controller, several of Luigi's movements can be controlled using either button presses or motion control via the Nintendo 3DS gyroscope and accelerometer.
The game will also use the Nintendo Network in an online multiplayer mode, in which players take the role of Luigi in different palettes, in order to explore the "ScareScraper" mansion. There have been 3 multiplayer player modes revealed so far: Hunter, Rush & Polter-pup. Multiplayer mode for this game can be accessed by LAN, WiFi, and Download Play.
This game will release: March 24, 2013 for the 3DS.