Metroid Prime 4 Announced for Nintendo Switch

[JaidynReiman]

7 hours ago, Candescence said:

Well, on the flipside the people still at Retro are still talented - the Donkey Kong Country games made by them were pretty great, after all. Whether they can still make another great Metroid Prime would be another question entirely, but I suppose it's a moot point since this new game is being made by a new team, but it'll be interesting to see who is on the new team and what they plan to do with MP4.

Of course they're still talented. The main point of contention is just that Metroid Prime wouldn't necessarily turn out the same way they wanted anyway with Retro, and Retro in general might want to try something else. There's no point in forcefully bringing back Retro if most of the people who made Metroid Prime are gone anyway. Let Retro do what they want to do. Whatever that ends up being.

Michael Kelbaugh even said a couple years back eventually he'd be interested in trying Metroid again.

[Marcello]

Spoiler

Another year(s) I don't need a Switch, I guess...

 

[Tornado]

I wonder what the hell happened.

[Meta77]

Released by 2021 most likely

[Teoskaven]

1 hour ago, Marcello said:

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Another year(s) I don't need a Switch, I guess...

 

Just a thought: how about as an apology give for free the original Metroid on Virtual Console for a limited time? That would be tied to this and feel more honest that just a gag from South Park.

And they fucking know, as the comments are already disabled. They know the shitstorm is about to hit the fan.

[Salamander]

Crikey, that's bad.  Hugely embarrassing for Nintendo.  Fair play to them for telling us, though.

The thing is, this shows that their real mistake was announcing it early.  It's pretty obvious now that they must have barely begun development, if at all, when they announced the game; they'd basically decided they needed a Metroid Prime 4 and so they signed the papers .  It's not uncommon for games to fail in development and have to be scrapped.  It's just that usually we never know about it.  If Nintendo had never announced the game at all, I wonder if they'd even have bothered restarting development?  But they can't back out now, with the announcement on the table; the fact is, they're under obligation to the fans to live up to their promise.

[Wraith]

What a mess lol.

Confirms a couple of suspicions I had. Not only is Metroid Prime 4 in Dev hell, but unless Retro is making 2 games now Donkey Kong Country is essentially on hold as well. It'll be a long ways off before we see another one. Metroid and DKC are my two favorite Nintendo IPs aside from Zelda, so I'm just kind of staring baffled at my switch right now lmao

I'm sure whatever this turns out to be will be great, but the people that made Metroid Prime what it was have been gone for a very long time, so expect it to be..different. 

I can't praise them for transparency on this because it was the bad kind. They announced a logo for clout before they started getting any work done. Probably before anyone even had a vision for what this project should be.

We'll see what happens in...3 years I guess. I understand why this is happening but I'm not happy about it.

[SupahBerry]

Well it's good to know Retro Studios is alive, at least.

27 minutes ago, FFWF said:

The thing is, this shows that their real mistake was announcing it early.  It's pretty obvious now that they must have barely begun development, if at all, when they announced the game; they'd basically decided they needed a Metroid Prime 4 and so they signed the papers .  It's not uncommon for games to fail in development and have to be scrapped.  It's just that usually we never know about it.  If Nintendo had never announced the game at all, I wonder if they'd even have bothered restarting development?  But they can't back out now, with the announcement on the table; the fact is, they're under obligation to the fans to live up to their promise.

Making a promise to their fans is what drove them to annouce it in the first place. They know the Metroid fans have been left highly unsatisfied. They know they're extremely unhappy with Fed Force. They announced MP4's development no matter how early because they want to make up for past mishaps.

You can say Samas Returns remake  could fit the bill just fine, and I mostly agree with that. But remember that there's a fan remake of that same game? And how Nintendo was nagged for shooting it down when they were trying not to let that take attention away from their real remake?

So Nintendo wouldn't settle with having to compete with AM2R and those who sided with it. They took a step further by announcing MP4 in 2017 so that people know they want to win them back. Whould things be that better off if we were left in the dark from all of this?

[Salamander]

There's an argument for that, but Nintendo could probably have left well alone.  I'm sure they must have made noises about gauging the reception to Samus Returns for potential future Metroid titles, openly stated that they weren't ruling out a new Prime title in the future, that sort of thing.  I agree that hindsight is 20/20, though; they probably did assume that Metroid Prime 4 was safe as houses, even if the ink was only just dried on the deal.  The last few games they announced way too early (Smash 4, Yoshi's Woolly World, Tokyo Mirage Sessions) came out more or less okay.

Personally I'm now wondering if Yoshio Sakamoto might be able to spring in with his own new Metroid before MP4 comes out.  Samus Returns dropped a pretty enormous hint that he had ideas for another 2D Metroid in the future, so one could already be in development.  And it seems clear that Sakamoto has, let's say a rivalry with Kensuke Tanabe and the Prime series.

[Marcello]

Sakamoto's next 2D Metroid will almost definitely come before Prime 4 now. But, even that might be awhile. I imagine Prime 4 was originally planned for this year or next, and I don't think they'd want them to release in the same year, so it might be planned for 2021 or so. I don't expect Prime 4 for at least 3 years.

Which, I think, really hurts it. Releasing this or next year, while the Switch is in its prime, could've done wonders for the game's sales and made the series much bigger. Now it's going to release in the tail end of the Switch's life...

I hope I'm wrong about all that, though.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

5 minutes ago, Marcello said:

at least 3 years.

5 minutes ago, Marcello said:

tail end of the Switch's life...

Uhhh, the Switch hasn't even turned 2 years old. It ain't going out with a lifespan of 5 or 6 years.

 

[Marcello]

4 minutes ago, JokerJovahexeonJoranvexeon said:

Uhhh, the Switch hasn't even turned 2 years old. It ain't going out with a lifespan of 5 or 6 years.

 

It'll probably be 7 at most. I'd consider those years close to the end.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

3 minutes ago, Marcello said:

It'll probably be 7 at most. I'd consider those years close to the end.

Ehh, Nintendo are aiming for 10 years at least. Give how swell things are going, that's likely to happen.

[Marcello]

5 minutes ago, JokerJovahexeonJoranvexeon said:

Ehh, Nintendo are aiming for 10 years at least. Give how swell things are going, that's likely to happen.

10 years without a replacement would make it longer than any previous generation. Even the PS2 didn't last that long without being replaced. There's no chance the Switch does.

Edit: Game Boy might count actually. 9 until Game Boy Color released and if you don't count that, 12 years until Game Boy Advance.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

21 minutes ago, Marcello said:

10 years without a replacement would make it longer than any previous generation. Even the PS2 didn't last that long without being replaced. There's no chance the Switch does.

Edit: Game Boy might count actually. 9 until Game Boy Color released and if you don't count that, 12 years until Game Boy Advance.

Go figure. Done by Nintendo themselves before. Figures they can shoot for it again with the innovation they have on display. The Switch is a console like no other before. And with some big games, it can last and stay afloat, in addition to its unique capabilities.

[Marcello]

26 minutes ago, JokerJovahexeonJoranvexeon said:

Go figure. Done by Nintendo themselves before. Figures they can shoot for it again with the innovation they have on display. The Switch is a console like no other before. And with some big games, it can last and stay afloat, in addition to its unique capabilities.

No, I stand by my opinion. Switch has no chance of going 10 years without being replaced by the Switch 2 or whatever they call the successor.

By 2027, we're going to be in the final years of the PS5 and XB4. I don't see the Switch living that long.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 minute ago, Marcello said:

No, I stand by my opinion. Switch has no chance of going 10 years without being replaced by the Switch 2 or whatever they call the successor.

What's your reasoning for such?

[Marcello]

31 minutes ago, JokerJovahexeonJoranvexeon said:

What's your reasoning for such?

Because, it's not something that really happens. Even the Game Boy did it because it got that shot in the arm that was Pokemon. I don't see anything like that happening for the Switch.

[The Deleter]

It's not even like Nintendo saying that is all that uncommon in the industry, either. Sony always "plans on supporting ___ for ten years"; doesn't stop them from releasing successors beforehand at the typical 5-6 year lifecycle.

[Strickerx5]

I can't remember the last time Nintendo just up and restarted development on something out right, if at all. It's a rare thing for the industry in general really. Can't imagine the amount of money they're losing on this. Prime 4 was set to be their next big game. They basically did a Square Enix and announced the game way too early. I know for a fact that they're never going to tell us what truly happened with this but damn man. Gotta wonder how this is going to shift things around internally for other projects.

It's rare Nintendo is ever this open so it'll be interesting to see how this year progresses.

And in regards to how long the Switch (or at least this version of it) has left, I'd give it another 3 years of being the new kid on the block. Any longer and the Switch will be too technically far behind, even by Nintendo and their piss poor tech standards. Especially since the Switch is already miles behind even the Xbox One so when those new consoles come out... I'd argue things might just be worse than how they were with the Wii. That's when they'll put out a Switch 2 or something with updated hardware to at least keep up the possibility of getting multi-platform releases while just having newer games "work" on the original.

Can honestly see Prime 4 being one of those transition games like botw was.

[Cayenne]

If i'm not mistaken, wasn't Prime 4 supposed to be developed along Bandai-Namco Singapore, a very recent Bamco studio? This is just a silly assumption, but I think this may be another N64 Mother 3 situation where the team doesn't have enough experience with certain things to finish the game.

[Patticus]

14 hours ago, FFWF said:

The thing is, this shows that their real mistake was announcing it early.  It's pretty obvious now that they must have barely begun development, if at all, when they announced the game; they'd basically decided they needed a Metroid Prime 4 and so they signed the papers .

The very same thing happened with Metroid Prime 3, if I recall - announced before any meaningful development, to sate a crowd hungry for more Samus action.

Nintendo's big mistake is not necessarily in announcing too soon, it's in always in treating Metroid as a third tier game series, seeing lower sales than Zelda & Mario as a sign that there is no public appetite for it, and then acting all surprised when it turns out people really do want more.

The fact is, if Metroid were given the Mario/Zelda treatment - new games at regular intervals, building a much more coherent universe and narrative, etc, then it would probably do a lot better than it does now; languishing for a decade or more at a time with no new content.

 

Anyway, I'm happy to see that Retro's back at the helm, but I worry that it having so few (if any) of the team members who actually made the Prime series involved will lead to it suffering, quality-wise. That said, if Nintendo really liked the demo they pitched, then there must be some solid talent working there, and I have confidence that they will deliver a great game. I have plenty to play in the meantime, but I would appreciate periodic updates, perhaps in the form of random and obscure concept art drops and whatnot, dev diaries and the like. Something more than the deafening silence they've given us these past few years.

[Meta77]

No idea why gamers are saying they are ok with the game being delayed to be worked on instead of being cancelled. Um they pretty much confirmed the game WAS cancelled and that they are restarting work from scratch. Basically its the E3 announcement all over.

[Blacklightning]

10 hours ago, Strickerx5 said:

I can't remember the last time Nintendo just up and restarted development on something out right, if at all.

The same thing happened with Earthbound if memory serves right. It might even have been Iwata that suggested starting over, cos in his own words it would've been quicker to just start right over than to salvage what they had at the time. I'm tired and have a cold so I don't care to factcheck it properly, just wanted to put that out there. Either way I doubt they said it outright while the game was still in development like they did here.

Honestly I can appreciate the honesty put on show here, but I feel like I have an inkling as to why they did too. A lot of the stuff they've done with Metroid over the years has come off as neglectful at best, tone deaf at worst - Samus Returns being a notable exception, but the point is I'm sure they know what it'd look like if they just up and dropped everything without a word. It'd be Federation Force all over again.

[Candescence]

The implication to be garnered from all of this is that Nintendo attempted an international multi-studio approach to development, but it didn't work out, and Retro pushed for a more straightforward approach with developers who have experience with the Prime games to begin with, providing Nintendo with a demo that proved that they still had the chops to make a good Metroid game. Retro are still at the very least somewhat competent developers, as they were able to develop two good if not excellent Donkey Kong games. Nintendo traditionally values quality in their bigger projects, they've been known to either scrap or restart projects if they seem to be doing poorly quality-wise.

Also, previously it was rumored that Retro was actually working on a Star Fox title (specifically a traditional rail shooter with a racing element to it), not a third DK game, so unless those rumors are false, Retro are now working on two projects, though one of them will likely be somewhat far along in development to begin with.