It’s a morning of good news and bad news for Nintendo fans. The highly anticipated followup to the Metroid Prime trilogy is essentially restarting development. This will certainly cause delays, though there had been no official release date set after its surprise reveal at E3 2017. However, in the good news category, Retro Studios is back in charge, bringing back the acclaimed developer that created those original three games on Gamecube and Wii.
In a 3 minute video, simply titled “Development Update on Metroid Prime 4 for Nintendo Switch”, Senior Managing Executive Officer of Nintendo, Shinya Takahashi explains what’s going on with the game. Saying that it has so far “not reached the standard we seek in a sequel to the Metroid Prime series,” Takahashi says that “the current development status of the game is very challenged.” Nintendo is famous for their strategy to only release complete and well-developed games, often delaying projects for months of years to see them to completion. That seems to be what is happening with Metroid Prime 4.
The solution that Nintendo has come up with is to bring in the big guns. Retro Studios created the original Metroid Prime and helmed its sequels. They will now work in collaboration with the current Metroid Prime 4 team. The current work on the game is being tossed out, with Takahashi saying they will “restart development from the beginning.”
For those who were expecting Metroid Prime 4 this year or early next, it’s a tough blow. However, if it wasn’t living up to the high standards of this series, it’s hard to see any fan being upset at waiting for a true successor.
