In a special surprise announcement, Nintendo has announced that the company tasked with the first three games in the Metroid Prime franchise is having to rebuild Metroid Prime 4 from the bottom up. Metroid Prime 4 was first announced at E3 2017, with a very short teaser, but in that time it appears as though things have gone very poorly for the much-loved franchise.
Nintendo’s general manager of entertainment planning and development, Shinya Takahashi made the announcement, citing major issues with the overall quality of the project. Specific details were not given, but we know that Metroid Prime 4 failed to live up to the standards Nintendo wanted internally.
From this perspective, we have determined that the current development status of [Metroid Prime 4] is very challenged, and we had to make a difficult decision as a development team. We have decided to re-examine the development structure and change it.
The project was well-underway, according to statements last year from Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé stating that the project was “well in development”. Since that time, the project has been handed to the same studio that worked on the original trilogy, Retro Studios. Metroid series producer Kensuke Tanabe will continue to advise on the project with Retro, so there will still hopefully be some of that nostalgic feel that fans are hoping for.
Nintendo wanted to apologize to fans for the much longer delay than anticipated. But they seem to want to deliver a finished product that meets what fans desire from the iconic series. Hopefully the delay will be worth it.
Takahashi said “It will be a long road until the next time we will be able to update you on the development progress, and development time will be extensive.”
No further details in terms of a new release window were provided, and it will be some time before we get to see what the new version of the game looks like. you can watch the full announcement down below.
