LEGO Luigi is a real thing, and he has his own starter course

Just as the leaks and rumors foretold, LEGO Mario will soon be joined by his brother, LEGO Luigi. Following last year's rollout of various LEGO Super Mario sets, LEGO Luigi is now getting a starter set of his own. The set launches later this summer and comes with some iconic characters and enemies from the Super Mario series.

Like LEGO Mario, LEGO Luigi has a built-in LCD display and speakers that can be used to react to objects in the courses that players construct out of LEGO bricks. As with the LEGO Super Mario starter course, the Luigi starter course seems to come with everything you need to create a Super Mario level out of LEGO bricks, including the starting pipe and the goal flagpost.

The LEGO Luigi starter course can be combined with other LEGO Super Mario sets to create more sprawling courses, and like LEGO Mario, LEGO Luigi has a color sensor that can be used to detect different brick colors. LEGO even says that Luigi will have a different reaction to nougat brown bricks, which represent the Tower biome, than LEGO Mario does.

The LEGO Luigi starter course comes with some familiar faces aside from the green-clad plumber. Familiar faces in the set include Boom Boom, the Pink Yoshi, and Bone Goomba. LEGO Luigi, as you'd expect, can interact with all of those characters, and we imagine LEGO Mario will be able to as well. The LEGO Luigi starter course is also supported by the LEGO Super Mario app, which is where kids will find building instructions and a space to share their creations.

So, if you thought it was only a matter of time before LEGO Luigi joined LEGO Mario, then you were right on the money. The LEGO Luigi starter course is up for pre-order now from LEGO's website for $59.99 – the same price as the LEGO Mario starter course. It'll start shipping out on August 1st, 2021.