If you’ve already brought King Boo down with your unrivaled vacuuming skills in Luigi’s Mansion 3 and subsequently shelved the title, you might be missing out on a huge chunk of the fun. Luigi’s Mansion 3 has an exciting online multiplayer option called Scarescraper that’s available to play as soon as you’ve unlocked Gooigi in Story mode. But if you haven’t played this online mode before, check out our Scarescraper guide to learn more about it before you dive in!

Getting the Scarescraper party started

Scarescraper offers a few different playing options when you boot it up, so choose what’s best for you.

Local vs online: You have the option of playing locally or online. Playing online also offers you the option of playing specifically with friends, or with any other online players.

Single vs co-op: Players can choose to go solo, but you’re also able to play co-op with up to two players per console (a Luigi and a Gooigi), both locally and online. Since there are four slots per party, you can play with a maximum of 8 players.

New game vs join: For the online mode, you can either join a new game or one that’s already in progress. If you join an ongoing game, you’ll have to wait for the team to first complete the floor they’re on before you can join in on the fun.

5 floors vs 10 floors: You have to choose whether you want to play with 5 or 10 floors and there is a major difference between the two!

I’d definitely recommend the 10-floor option since this is how you collect rare ghosts! You’ll only find these elusive specters when you’ve made it halfway up the 10-story Scarescraper trek, and finally, be able to fill up that empty space on your gallery shelf.

Welcome to the Scarescraper

Get ready ‘cos here comes the substantial part of this guide! Once you’ve got your game set up, you’ll find yourself and your team of different colored doppelgängers spread across the map of the floor.

Each floor gives you five minutes to complete an objective (you’ll see this goal as soon as the round starts – we’ll go over more of this soon), but you can find time extensions if your countdown is getting close to zero. These extensions look like pocket watches and will grant you an additional 30 seconds when picked up. You can usually find them hiding in furniture or they can be dropped by ghosts when being slammed.

If you run out of time, your Scarescraper journey will be at an end and you’ll have to restart on the first floor if you choose to continue.

You can keep track of your objective’s progress by checking out a counter on the bottom right corner of your screen. You’ll also have a map in the top right corner that is incredibly important for clearing floors. This map doesn’t just show you your location, but also shows if a room has already been cleared (a ghost icon with a green checkmark) and will help you avoid trap doors.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 Scarescraper Objectives

The objectives of each Scarescraper floor are random and can be any one of the sections listed below.

Capture the Ghosts!

This is by far the most common goal you’ll see during your trip through the Scarescraper. It’s as basic as it sounds – ghosts are hiding out in different rooms and you and your team need to find and capture them before time runs out. You’ll encounter all the standard ghosts from the game, with the exception of the Trappers (a big orange ghost with two tongues).





Collect the Money!

The bulk of the money you can collect will come from Golden Goobs. You can tell where these ghosts are hiding because the object they’re hiding in will have a golden shimmer around it. The most common place they’ll hide is the big box with two ropes on either end. You can also tell if a Golden Goob is hiding in the room because you’ll see a ghost icon in the room on the map.

You’ll also be able to find money by vacuuming up items around you and with the usual methods, like checking chests and drawers. I’d recommend focusing on the Golden Goobs first though since they’ll be the biggest addition to your pot of gold.

Find the Toads!

You’ll start this level off in a room with a TV, which is where you’ll need to bring the Toads back once you’ve found them.

Check around all the different rooms – many of them are brimming with ghosts, but no Toads. It’s best to leave these rooms be while you go in search of a Toad. Keep in mind, though, that a Toad might be hiding out in a bathroom or a connected room, meaning you’ll have to clear the path as you make your way back to the hallway.

Once you’ve got a Toad, you can head back to the room where you started out. All you need to do is walk up to the TV to drop off your buddy. You don’t need to drop Toads off one by one, but if you have more than one trailing behind you when you happen upon a haunted room, they’ll go running around in a panic while you’re forced to fight the ghosts.

Defeat the Crows!

Crows will be hanging out in many of the rooms, and you’ll have to either vacuum them up or flash them with your Strobulb (A or R). As you approach the crows, they’ll start flying in circles and attacking you if they are not defeated quickly. The crows can be spread out across the room, so you’ll need to first approach them to get them flying.

The best technique I found for this level is to start vacuuming the crows, then flash your Strobulb to take them out. This has helped me take out more crows at once, since flashing at them as they move or waiting for them to finally get sucked up takes longer.

Defeat Boolossus!

This is the final floor of the Scarescraper – you’ll have 10 minutes to defeat Boolossus, whose fight is very similar to King Boo. You’ll be able to recognize many of his attacks if you’ve already fought the final foe of the story.

Lightning Strike: Lightning will come down on any of the highlighted tiles. Move to a tile that is not highlighted to avoid damage.

Lightning Strike with Tongue Swipe: Just like the above attack, avoid the highlighted tiles. But a key difference will be the row of non-highlighted tiles, which will run vertically in the center of the floor or in a horizontal row of three in front of Boolossus. While you’re safe from lightning in these zones, you’ll need to jump over Boolossus’s swinging tongue with a burst move (ZL + ZR).

Jumping Slam: Boolossus will slam into the ground, indicated by a large shadow. After he’s slammed into the ground, avoid the following shockwave with a burst jump.

Chomping Chase: Boolossus will start chomping through the floor, chasing you and your team. It’s very obvious when he’s turning, so make sure to avoid getting in front of him. The easiest way to avoid damage from this attack is to follow behind him.

Once you’ve survived a short wave of these attacks, Boolossus with spit out a bunch of bombs. Avoid getting hit when he first throws them since they can knock you over and deal some damage. Then, suction them with your Poltergust 3000 and hurl them back at him.

Once he’s ingested a few bombs, the giant Boo will explode into a lot of smaller Boos that will fall onto the floor. Watch the circles to see where they’ll be falling – you need to avoid being hit by them when they come crashing down, and you only have a little bit of time to suction and slam them.

After doing this for a few rounds and wiping out all of the small Boos, you will have defeated Boolossus and cleared the Scarescraper!

A note on rare ghosts

If you select the 5-floor option, your 5th floor will be the Boolossus fight. But if you choose the 10-floor option, the 5th floor will be where you encounter the rare ghosts.

You’ll start off in a room with a locked door – go searching around to find the key to this door. Once the door’s been unlocked, your whole team will need to stand on the platform with your Gooigis to entice the rare ghosts out.

The type of rare ghost that comes out will be random, but you’ll only get to keep one for your collection if you (not your teammates) defeat at least one rare ghost to zero health.

Teamwork in Luigi’s Mansion 3

There are two roadblocks that will stop you from reaching your goal unless your team works together on the two key elements below.

Platform

This platform will show up as a green circle on your map. In order to unlock a door in the same room, your whole team and your Gooigis will need to be standing on it. If you see one of these platforms on your map and your teammates are spamming the “over here” message, head over there ASAP!

Keys

You’ll usually find a locked door on almost every floor. These doors are indicated on your map with a solid red color. The key for this locked door could be hidden in any room or balcony, so keep an eye on your map. When you’ve entered the room with the hidden key, you’ll see the key icon show up on the room’s location on the map.

Search drawers and pots, or flash the Boo statues if outside on a balcony. Once the key’s been found, the Luigi holding the key needs to open the locked door to unlock it for everyone.

Traps, tricks, and fainting, oh My!

There are a number of obstacles standing between you and your goal. These include different traps strewn across the map, some Boo trickery that will slow down your progress, and a mid-journey nap if you’ve reached zero health.

Dealing with traps in Luigi’s Mansion 3

There are three types of traps to watch out for while you search around the mansion.

Real fake doors!

A la Rick and Morty: are you tired of real doors cluttering up your house, where you open them and you actually go somewhere?

Well, the Scarescraper’s got just what you need. The fake doors look like normal doors but will slam open and trap you against the wall when you try to go through. Once stuck, you have to wait for a teammate to help you out with a suction shot (Y or L).

You can tell which doors are real because they’ll show up on the map (small rectangles against the wall). They also don’t have a doormat in front of them. But in case you’re still not sure if the door is real, try shooting a plunger at it – if the plunger pops off, it’s a real door. And if it sticks, it’s a trap.

Brush it under the carpet

The second trap to watch out for is the carpet trap. This trap is easy to spot since the trap is a square section of the hallway carpet that has visibly frayed edges, a solid yellow border, and a peeled back corner. To avoid getting caught, you can walk along the wall, or suction the lifted corner to destroy the trap.

If you happen to step into it, the bit of carpet will wrap around you like a net. A teammate will have to suction the carpet off of you to free you. You’ll want to be careful when going around corners since the walls can sometimes block your view and these traps can be waiting just beyond it.

Your own walk-in closet

The third trap to watch out for is the wardrobe trap. This trap looks different than a normal wardrobe. The normal ones have a diamond shape on both doors, whereas the fake wardrobe has a ghost (mini Hammer?) face design. If you open one of these, you’ll get trapped inside until a teammate suction shoots it.

Some Boo trickery

As you’re dodging the numerous traps and completing your objective, you’ll also be subjected to some ghostly mischievousness. You’ll hear Boo’s cackle when this happens, then you’ll either be left in the dark or without your Poltergust.

If the lights turn off, your map will be temporarily disabled as well. It seems like the map will start up again after some time, regardless of the lights being back on or not. To turn the lights back on, head to one of the storage closets and flash your Strobulb at the fuse box in there.

If your Poltergust gets teleported, check your map to see where all the Poltergusts have vanished to. The Poltergusts will show gray goo at first, so you’ll have to check the different locations to find yours. But if someone is in the same area as a stolen Poltergust, its color will show up on its map icon, making it even easier to find yours.

A weary traveler

If your health is depleted during your battles, your Luigi will faint. Your teammates will have to revive you by finding you and hitting the A button until you’ve woken back up. If a teammate faints, you’ll see an alert on the bottom left corner of your screen – you can then find them on the map and revive them.

What did you say, punk?

There’s no chat option in the game, but you are provided with three different pre-defined phrases to use so you can communicate with your teammates.

“Over here!”

Right directional button ▶️

Use this phrase to tell your teammates to head your way. You should use this if you need your team to help out with something, usually a platform. For other situations, I wouldn’t recommend using this unless you really need someone to come over – I’ve seen quite a few players use it in really unnecessary situations so I generally don’t heed their call unless they’re spamming this.

“Thank you!”

Left directional button ◀️

A pretty straightforward phrase – you can use it if a teammate helps you out of a trap or helps a lost player find their way to a platform.

“Help!”

Down directional button 🔽

Again, pretty straightforward. Usually, you’ll use this if you get stuck in a trap. If you see a Luigi icon with motion lines on the map and they’re using this phrase, find them to help them out of a trap. I’ve also seen some Japanese players use this phrase instead of “over here” since it’s a little less direct.

Scarescraper ability boosts

There are a number of items you can collect from chests that will give you certain abilities. These items only stick around on the floor you found them on, though. Additionally, if you pick up an item as Gooigi, he’ll get to keep the item instead of passing it to your normal Luigi.

Trap Detector: This little siren will sit on top of Luigi’s head and start going off when you get close to a trap.

Super Poltergust: This super powerful Poltergust will let you start slamming ghosts as soon as you’ve suctioned their tail, as well as deal twice the damage.

Super Strobulb: Your Strobulb will now be able to flash an entire room without needing a charge, stunning every ghost.

Super Star: This item only lasts for a bit, but makes you invincible and fast, while also allowing you to defeat ghosts by simply touching them.

Dark Light Goggles: These goggles will reveal all the hidden objects in a location, which you can then shine with your Dark Light [D or L+R]. They’ll also let you see a hidden ghost moving around.

Tallying up Scarescaper points

If you’re the competitive type, you might be interested in getting the most points out of anyone on your team. After you complete a floor, you’ll be able to see your current point tally before heading to the next floor.

You earn points based on how many ghosts you defeat and how much money you accrue. For the Toad and crow floors, you’ll also earn additional points depending on how many toads/crows you collect. There is a point category that shows a heart, but I’ve been having trouble figuring out exactly what these scores.

I’ve tried losing HP to see if there’s a negative score and collecting hearts to see if that adds to it, but I’ve had no luck so far. I’ve definitely seen some players earn points in this category, though.

Luigi Ghost Battling Tips

Here are a few tips for combating those elusive ghosts found throughout the Scarescraper.

Speed up your achievements

One of the best things about Scarescraper is that you can unlock some battle and collection achievements with it although you can still get these achievements without playing Scarescraper. The money you collect in this online mode doesn’t count towards your Story mode bank account, but it does count towards collection achievements like collect 3,000 gold bars or 10,000 coins.

You can also knock out some of the battle achievements since you come across larger hordes of ghosts here. For “slam a ghost 7 times in a row,” I recommend using this on a Hammer ghost or a rare ghost since they have higher health levels. While slamming, hit the A button as soon as the ghost hits the ground. This bypasses the normal recoil, which lets you slam a ghost a lot more than you normally can.

You can also use this trick to take out higher HP ghosts in one go, like Hammers. I usually continue pulling them until their HP is under 140, then start slamming with the mentioned trick.

The second battle achievement I’d recommend trying out with Scarescraper is “defeat 6 ghosts at once.” You should use this in a room full of only Goobs. Try backing into a corner as the Goobs converge on you, then stun them all with a charged Strobulb flash and vacuum away.

When in doubt, flash them out

Flashing multiple enemies is also a good tactic when you’ve got a pretty good ghost crowd. You can continue to stun ghosts as they approach, then try to vacuum up as many as you can in one go. This will help you clear up rooms faster in your battle against the clock.

The last two tips also help you uncover ghosts during a battle to speed things up a bit. If a ghost has disappeared, you can flash your Dark Light around the room to reveal its outline. Once you’ve uncovered the invisible adversary, flash your light to stun it.

Defeating Oozers

Lastly, the Oozers – a seriously annoying bunch of ghosts. Not only do they constantly chuck banana peels and other objects at you, but the cowards then proceed to hide away in dressers and pots. Ugh.

This means you can’t use your Dark Light to uncover to their location, but all hope is not yet lost. If you see where an Oozer is hanging out, you can run-up to its hiding spot and use a Burst move to jettison it out, making it vulnerable to stuns and suction.

Battle and Scarescraper etiquette

There’s really no established rules of etiquette for playing Scarescraper, but I’ve had my fair share of runs with a frustrating teammate or two. There are certain things you can do to annoy and discourage your fellow Luigis. Try to avoid these if possible to make your Scarescaper runs as fruitful as possible.

If you’ve got nothing good to say

While the inter-team dialogue is quite basic, it’s really important to pay attention to it. If your teammates send a message, try to figure out what they need from you. If they’re all in a room with a platform, it means they’re waiting on you and you need to head over ASAP if you’re not in the middle of a battle.

If you’re carrying a Toad and are wandering aimlessly about rooms, they might be trying to guide you to the drop off point. They may also shoot plungers at you to get your attention if you haven’t noticed their calls.

So, considering the use of dialogue can be incredibly helpful and important, don’t send messages if you don’t really need something from your teammates. That is, of course, unless you’re thanking them for helping you out of a trap.

Are you ready?

You’ll be prompted to mark yourself as ready after clearing each floor. There’s a one minute countdown for you to do this, but most players are good to go as soon as this screen comes up. Make sure to click ready so the team isn’t left waiting the one minute to move onto the next stage.

Real friends don’t hoard keys

If you’ve found a key, try to find the locked door right away if it isn’t already on the map. Once you know where the locked door is, head over there right away. There could be more ghosts waiting behind it, and not unlocking the door can slow your team’s progress.

A burden or a blessing?

If you wander into a room where a teammate is fighting ghosts, don’t stop to help unless they really need it or ask for it. Having too many cooks in the kitchen can be problematic – you can bump into each other or accidentally free a ghost by trying to vacuum one that’s already being caught by a teammate. The exception to this would be ghosts with two tails (like the Hammer), which two Luigi’s van vacuum and slam together.

And if your whole team has just unlocked a new room, don’t all huddle together in it and fight the ghosts. Head into the next room to start clearing ghosts there before the timer runs out.

A theft of Toads

On the Find the Toads level, players sometimes try to take Toads away from other players. Why this is, I’m can’t say for sure since it could be an accident when vacuuming other items in a room. But I prefer to err on the side of cynicism, especially since I’ve seen players camp in the drop off room. Essentially, as soon as a player with a Toad walks in, the camper will vacuum it and walk it up to the TV.

They are likely doing this because you get additional points for collecting Toads in this round. Of course, there is a chance that they think they’re helping with a sort of assembly line team effort, but time’s definitely better spent searching other rooms for Toads in this case. Regardless, don’t steal Toads.

Don’t feel trapped

If you come across a trap you can take out, do so if time permits. If you also have a teammate with a penchant for getting stuck in them, do everyone a favor and destroy traps when you come across them.

Stick to the plan!

It’s strange to have to say this, but focus on the objective of the level!! If your goal is to collect ghosts, don’t go opening a bunch of drawers and collecting money. It’s a waste of time and could hold your team back from progressing to the next level. Adding to this, time extensions can hide in these drawers when the countdown starts getting low – if someone’s already rummaged through them beforehand, they’ll remain empty even if you’re almost out of time.

I’m on the map!

In case I haven’t been nagging about checking your map enough in Scarescraper, I’m not done yet. Because boy have I got news for you. Check your map!!!!

Just to recap, your map will show you which rooms haven’t been checked yet, where platforms and locked doors are, and which doors are actually traps. You can also see where your teammates are and if they’re in need of help. This will be paramount to playing your best game and keeping your teammates happy.

Your map can also clue you in if there are any hidden doors. If you see a door map icon but no door, flash your Dark Light to reveal a hidden door. And if you see a large chunk of the floor blocked off with no visibly marked door leading to it, check to see if there is a hidden door.

No rare ghosts for you!

As I mentioned earlier, you only get to keep a rare ghost for your gallery if you’re the one to defeat it. And while you might go smashing rare ghosts around in an effort to complete the floor, you might be preventing a teammate from getting their own rare ghost.

If time permits, leave some rare ghosts for your teammates after you’ve captured yours. To prevent them from sneaking away, you can continue to stun them until your teammates vacuum them up.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 Scarescraper DLC

And that wraps up our guide on playing Scarescraper in Luigi’s Mansion 3! There are two DLC updates due out in April and July 2020 which promise to introduce new themed floors and ghosts in Scarescraper as well as new Luigi outfits and minigames for the ScreamPark mode. So grab your vacuum and get hunting!

Thanks for checking out our guide! Make sure to also check out our Dark Crystal Age of Resistance hype guide. If we’ve missed anything or if you have a suggestion for our guide, feel free to leave us a comment or join on us our Discord server.