The other developer is out
Metroid Prime 4, announced nearly two years ago at E3, is getting a huge shakeup.
In the below clip, Shinya Takahashi, Senior Managing Executive Officer, plainly explains what’s been going on behind the scenes and why Nintendo has been mum for this long. Citing quality concerns, Takahashi says that Nintendo had to make the “difficult decision” to “re-examine the development structure itself and change it.”
What does that mean? Well the mystery developer (that we’ll probably learn about soon enough through leaks, though reports point to Bandai Namco) is out and Retro Studios, the original production company that handled the Prime trilogy, is in. That’s good news for Retro fans, though it comes with a catch: Takahashi says that development will now “restart from the beginning.” Yikes! It looks like that “2018 and beyond” statement from Bill Trinen a few E3s back really puts the emphasis on “beyond.” That said, we can wait. No one wants to see Metroid dead and buried because something rushed out of the door.
The Metroid Prime series, which debuted in 2002, is one of the most beloved Nintendo games of all time, and certainly one of the most celebrated on the GameCube. It welcomed two sequels, Echoes and Corruption in 2004 and 2007 respectively, followed by a (now rare) Trilogy package in 2009.
Although we got the 2D-centric Metroid: Samus Returns back in 2017, which kept the series afloat and will likely spawn a sequel, fans have been wanting a true Prime follow-up for over a decade now. They’ll have to wait even longer, but with Retro in charge odds are it will see the light of day eventually. Retro has been fairly quiet since launching Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze in 2014, so it’s great to see the Austin Texas studio return to action. Nearly everything they touch seems to turn to gold.
