While LM2 is interesting with its different settings, I don't like how broken up they are into mini-sections to play. Having a large Skyscraper / Office Tower to explore would sort of keep it on location but still allow for a lot of variety among the settings for each floor.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. Luigi's Mansion 2 came out when Nintendo was still pretty tutorial and handholding crazy with their major titles which is why that game was so obnoxious. They've really eased up on that for years now and with the huge success of Breath of the Wild and Odyssey, I think it's safe to assume this Luigi's Mansion will be more exploration focused like the first one again.
I'm not sure if it is because of the tutorial stuff. Yeah, the game waits through the first 4 missions to slowly dole out your equipment and have you understand certain concepts. But I think the rest of the game follows that bite-size mission formula to:
1. Try and tell a bit more of a story / give a narrative to each mansion
2. And because Nintendo's approach to handheld gaming was to make games a bit smaller or more playable in small doses / chunks.
With sleep mode, it shouldn't really matter but the philosophy often still seemed to be to make games easier to pick up play a bit in between rest periods of not playing. To me, that's why LM2 is designed the way it is but maybe Next Level wanted it that way because they thought it would give more of a narrative to the game than the original had.
In any case, I do think if LM3 is a combining of ideas from LM1 and LM2 then this could be a very special game.
If Luigi’s Mansion 3 takes place in a skyscraper, I want to see a Die Hard reference.
There was a moment in LM2 where Luigi used his vacuum to latch on to a spiderweb ball hanging from a ceiling which he then used to lower himself down to a floor below as the webbing stretched. LM3 could definitely use that same principle by having the vacuum to suck on to the end of a firehose and then Luigi can swing down outside the building to break through the glass onto another floor. Die Hard!