Metroid Prime 4 Development Currently Below Expectations, Will Be Restarted From Scratch At Retro Studios - News
by Adam Cartwright , posted on 25 January 2019 / 3,775 Views
Nintendo's Senior Managing Executive Officer Shinya Takahashi has provided an update on the company's eagerly-anticipated Nintendo Switch exclusive title Metroid Prime 4, detailing that the current product "has not reached the standards [they] seek in a sequel to the Metroid Prime series". As such, development will be restarted from scratch at Retro Studios, the team responsible for the earlier entries in the franchise, in order to reach the level of quality fans have come to expect. Retro will be working in collaboration with Kensuke Tanabe, the Metroid series' producer.
You can watch the full video below:
Takahashi notes that this means a delay beyond the initial launch window expected and apologised to fans for this.
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It sucks but ultimately this is going to be a good thing I feel. I mean, Nintendo must be very serious about this game to come out and openly say this. Never would I have imagined them doing this even a few years ago. Either way, I don't think we should be discouraged. It will come, and it will be good.
I don't think giving the project to Retro Studio is any kind of a guarantee for game to be good. All the developpers of Metroid Prime 1 2 and 3 are gone. Some former exployees of RS said the studio's managment was catastrophic. I'ts been 5 years since a game came out of the studio... Nothing leads me to think this is reassuring.
Well crap. This was my most anticipated game of 2019. Who was working on it??
Atleast Retro is at the helm again. However, Nintendo please support them and stop having them start and stop projects. That has to be infuriating.
Same thing happened with the Final Fantasy VII remake. Ultimately it's better this way
my thoughts exactly, I rather have an amazing game in 2020 than some generic space shooter in 2019, there's enough mediocre games out this year if I want one.
Agreed Ganon, but considering previous Prime development timelines, 2021 is more likely than 2020, and given Retro taking a while to make games, especially lately, don't be surprised if this means 2022. I still support the move if only because the guts it takes to make it means they had to know what they were doing, but they had better give us Metroid Prime Trilogy HD on Switch to make up for the wait.
So what is going to happen with the game Retro was cooking up all this time? Because if it's scraped, I fear Metroid will be canned once again in the future.
That game's probably very close to completion, considering how long the development cycle has already been.
Nintendo obviously has tiers of quality control, they are perfectly content with pushing a mediocre party game or what amounts to an open beta Mario Tennis game (Ultra Smash, not Aces) out the door to fill a hole in the release-schedule, but when it comes to their serious Top-Tier franchises that will not do.
I appreaciate them coming out and being transparent about whats going on though. That's more then Pikmin 4 got. It is also great to see Retro involved, but I feel like this is the most puzzling question of them all, WTF has Retro been working on for the last SEVEN YEARS?
My thoughts are that what they were working on probably was the Star Fox game that's been rumored, but that the silence surrounding the game and Retro studios in general means that the Star Fox game was itself canceled, which would also explain the rumors of frustrated workers coming out of Retro. This would leave them with nothing to do, and perhaps Nintendo figured that with Star Fox Grand Prix cancelled, they might as well give Retro something they're more familiar with. Just my theory, no way to know, obviously, but you have to admit it lines up pretty well with what just happened.
Sad but hopefully. Love you, Samus. Let us help you fight the good fight.
I'm happy to see they're taking the Metroid Prime series so seriously. This is a gutsy move, that few developers or publishers outside of Nintendo would make. They're dedicated to making Metroid a series known for quality. That's a turnaround from just a few years ago when they thought a game like Federation Force was acceptable. A promising sign for the series, it's finally getting the respect it deserves from Nintendo, even if that means we'll have to suffer a bit longer.
A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad. -Shigeru Miyamoto
If development wasn't going well, I can only see this as good news. A lot of Retro's top employees did leave after MP3 but they still produced some great DKC games so I'm sure they still have plenty of talented people left. Hopefully they can at least use some of the assets that were developed for MP4 so they don't have to start completely from scratch.
Now we know the cross-gen launch title of the next nintendo console.
I assumed this was a joke when I saw the headline.
Anyway, a delay this big sucks. But, it doesn't suck as much as a crappy Metroid Prime game would.
But the top people who made MP1-3 are gone. Current Retro is not past Retro. So it is no guarantee that MP4 is "now in good hands", considering the top talent that made the old games what they were, are now elsewhere.
Goodness, who was working on this prior?
Bandai Namco.
No one knows, but the rumor mentionned Bandai Namco Singapore, then Tokyo, then an internal Nintendo team
Crackdown 3 and FF7 suffered from similar scenarios. Its all for the quality of the product. Unfortunately I am guessing a 2022 release now.
Yikes, has this ever happened to a AAA game before? I don't think so.
Yeah, but they usually are not this transparent.
Was watching a vid on YouTube earlier...it happened to the sequel to an obscure little game known as RESIDENT EVIL back in the day but it wasn’t highly publicized. Didn’t change production company’s or anything but pretty much scrapped what they’d been working on and started from scratch. Yeah it happens from time to time.
This is what happens when so much is invested in games like tennis and party instead of metroid
I'm honestly trying to understand how the hell you got to that conclusion. Do you really think Nintendo don't have enough money because they spent all of it on Mario Tennis Aces and Super Mario Party?
I'm not sure restarting will do any good. Metroid Prime 3, Fedeation Forces and also Samus Returns were rather a big disappointment and could neither represent the Prime nor the classic series worthily. There used to be the brilliant fan project AMR2 which was really, really great, but instead of offering the makers a job, Nintendo took care of the removal of the project. That's why I don't expect too much from Metroid Prime 4.
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