Nintendo has announced that the long-anticipated sequel in the Metroid Prime series, Metroid Prime 4, has been delayed – and not just delayed, but is getting completely rebooted. As in, they’re starting over from scratch, with a different developer.
On one hand, you have to admire Nintendo’s honesty and transparency. There’s not many publishers that will come, hat in hand, and make a video to their fans telling them that the sequel they’ve been waiting on for almost 12 years is being scrapped and completely rebuilt from scratch – and that it’s going to be years still before the game comes out – and apologetic about it. That’s not something you see a lot from a publisher as big as Nintendo. In fact, you pretty much never see it. Certainly not from EA or Activision. For that reason alone, Nintendo should be applauded.
But for Metroid fans, this delay is hard to take.
This August, it will be nine years since we’ve gotten a proper, brand-new Metroid game – and 12 years since Nintendo released the last Metroid Prime game.
TWELVE
YEARS!
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was released on August 27, 2007. The last new Metroid game we got is Metroid: Other M in August 2010.
“But what about ‘Metroid Prime: Federation Force’ and ‘Metroid: Samus Returns’? We’ve gotten those both in the last three years. Don’t they count?”
Yes and no. Metroid: Samus Returns is a remake of Metroid II for Game Boy – a great remake, but still not a new game. And while Metroid Prime: Federation Force is a solid handheld co-op shooter, it doesn’t resemble a proper Metroid game, or a game fans wanted. Federation Force is Metroid in name only.
Nintendo’s track record with Metroid fans over the last decade hasn’t been great. The lone bright spot has been the release of the aforementioned Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS, a game that represents years of pleading and begging from fans to Nintendo to please remake Metroid II for Game Boy the way they did the original Metroid with Metroid: Zero Mission. Surprisingly, Nintendo actually listened. Fans were pleased with the result, but other than that, Nintendo has barely acknowledged the series. Since Other M released in 2010, if you’ve wanted to play a game as Samus Aran, your best bet was to make sure you had a copy of Super Smash Bros. for either Wii U or 3DS, and take out your frustration beating up other Nintendo characters as Samus.
Metroid is a triple-A, top-tier series, not just in the pantheon of Nintendo games, but in all of video games. It’s one of the most influential series in the history of the industry, and has been the inspiration for many indie devs to make their own game with Metroid’s core design. Metroid’s influence over the course of its 30+ year life has been considerable and significant.
That’s why it’s puzzling that Nintendo has made fans wait this long for a new game – but it’s also the reason that, now that they’ve officially announced Metroid Prime 4, they’re starting over, and starting over with Retro Studios no less, the development house that created the original Prime installments. Metroid fans can rest assured the game is now in good hands.
Nintendo will go long periods of time without giving the Metroid series the attention it deserves, and it’s hard to argue that Nintendo hasn’t mismanaged the series the last nine years from lack of attention. However, to Nintendo’s credit, when they do get down to brass tacks and decide they are indeed going to make a true, mainline Metroid game, they are very aware of the expectations from fans. That’s likely why they’ve scrapped the game and are starting over. After making fans wait this long, if Metroid Prime 4 is not a home run, it will make their displeasure with Federation Force look like a trifle.
Another puzzling aspect of Metroid Prime 4 is that Nintendo never said who the original developer was. When they announced the game at E3 2017, they only told us who it wasn’t. They told us it wasn’t Retro Studios. The question then became, why not? Retro Studios created the Prime series. If not them, then who is the developer? If Retro isn’t working on Metroid, then what in Ridley’s name have they been working on the past several years? They haven’t released a game since Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for Wii U in 2013.
So many questions.
There’s a lot of armchair developers talking now about how long it’s going to take Nintendo and Retro to finish and release Metroid Prime 4. That it’s going to take several years, to the point we may not even see it on the Switch. Or that it may be a dual release for the Switch and the Switch’s successor. That might happen, but in truth, we don’t know because we don’t know how long Retro has been working on the project.
Or that Retro has had too much personnel turnover since Prime 3’s release in 2007 and they aren’t the same developer anymore. They’re only capable of making colorful platformers like Donkey Kong Country now, and aren’t up to the task of making a sci-fi masterpiece.
In truth, all development houses have personnel turnover, and it’s not going to matter how many have left Retro since Prime 3. As long as Kensuke Tanabe and Shigeru Miyamoto are overseeing the project, it will be great. Nintendo will accept nothing less, and neither will fans. These are similar concerns fans had before the original Metroid Prime came out almost 20 years ago. It’s funny how history repeats itself.
The question no one seems to be asking is, what kind of game is Metroid Prime 4 going to be? Will Retro and Nintendo keep the series a first-person adventure game? Or will they try something new?
Will Nintendo take what they’ve learned about open-world game design from Zelda: Breath of the Wild and apply it to Metroid, while keeping Metroid’s classic game design intact? Will Metroid Prime 4 be an open-world epic that takes 100+ hours to complete? What kind of new power-ups will they introduce for Samus? Will Samus be the only bounty hunter in the game, or will they reintroduce the bounty hunters from Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Prime Hunters as either playable characters or NPCs?
As Nintendo openly stated in their video, we’re not going to get our answers for awhile. However, in the meantime, it would help to assuage the disappointment of this big delay if Nintendo would release some older Metroid games for the Switch. First on that list should be Metroid Prime Trilogy. Metroid: Other M would be nice as well. Let’s make that happen, Nintendo. While we wait…and wait…and wait.
The Gamer's Standard 