After the news emerged that Nintendo has made the difficult decision to restart Metroid Prime 4’s development from scratch at Retro Studios, many have been left speculating about what has happened behind the scenes.
Step in Game Informer senior editor Imran Khan, who, after reaching out to some of his contacts, has helped to paint a picture as to how Nintendo reached their ultimate decision. That reveals how teams in different countries had been working on the game, and, in wanting to bring it “all under one roof,” Retro Studios had pitched to be involved.
“Huh, I guess that explains where Metroid Prime Trilogy disappeared to. Retro [Studios] working on Metroid Prime 4 is interesting. There’s not a lot of old Metroid Prime people there anymore, so the experience is all just in the name. It’s a good PR move, but I under [sic] what happened with the old developer (which was Bandai Namco Studios) to cause them to overturn the table,” Khan pondered in a Twitter post.
“The last I heard of the game was around September when people told me it was proceeding fine. Reggie [Fils-Aime] even said the same in December, when clearly it must have been boiling over.”
He later went on to add: “Hearing that the big problem with Metroid Prime 4 development was Nintendo’s experimental ad-hoc development process; it was being made in parts in different countries,” Game Informer senior editor Imran Khan explained in Twitter post.
“Some studios were trucking along saying it was going smoothly while it was on fire elsewhere. Internal thinking was that it needs to be all under one roof to right the ship. Interestingly, Retro made the pitch for their involvement and put together a demo that Nintendo liked.”
Metroid Prime 4 will release exclusively for Nintendo Switch worldwide.
