
The most recent Nintendo Direct showcase might not have been the best, but it revealed a handful of titles that fans can look forward to in the first half of 2022, including the Portal games and No Man's Sky. The franchise is in a good place and so are the consoles. Ultimately, Nintendo isn't hard-pressed to make a Metroid announcement anytime soon.
#WHEN WAS METROID PRIME 4 ANNOUNCED SERIES#
Many consider the Metroid Prime games as some of the best Metroid Games of all time and the series is one of those spin-offs that are as good if not better than the original. Unfortunately, despite the positive reception, fans are still hoping that Nintendo releases Metroid Prime 4 for the Nintendo Switch soon. If it's any consolation, MercurySteam released Metroid Dread last year, much to critical acclaim. A bad sequel will do the brand more harm than good. Nintendo has every reason not to rush Metroid Prime 4.

Since then, we haven't heard much about Metroid Prime 4. Then, in 2019, development had moved to Retro Studios with Tanabe's involvement still confirmed. However, Metroid Prime 4 has had an uncharacteristically confusing development timeline.Īfter its announcement, it was reported that the Bandai Namco Studios of Japan and Singapore were working on Prime 4, including LucasArts staff that worked on Star Wars 1313, the infamous canceled Star Wars game that we got footage of earlier this year. Nintendo first announced the game at E3 2017 with the involvement of Kensuke Tanabe. 8jkvhZZzKdĪt this point, Metroid Prime 4 has been in development for the better part of the past decade. Retro Studios has updated their Twitter banner.

Some say that this is Nintendo's way of "confirming" that it's still working on Metroid Prime 4.
#WHEN WAS METROID PRIME 4 ANNOUNCED UPDATE#
Still, this hasn't stopped fans from speculating about the update after they just dropped it with zero context.

Unfortunately, as Retro Studios clarified, the long-time Metroid developers will not use the account for breaking news or announcements. While the news is undoubtedly disappointing for Metroid fans, Nintendo’s transparency regarding the issue and Retro Studios involvement will hopefully go some way to alleviate concerns.As pointed out by on Twitter, Retro Studios has changed the banner on its official social media account to show the shadow of a humanoid figure that looks a lot like Samus standing from afar across a dimly lit hallway. The statement revealed that Retro Studios previously had another title in the pipeline, which until now was unconfirmed.

Nintendo’s decision to “reexamine the development structure” will now bring the Metroid Prime series back to its original developers and hopefully back to store shelves in the future.įollowing the announcement, a past employee of Retro Studios voiced concerns that “unless Retro has grown to a two game studio” the game he was working on in August 2015 may have been shelved. We strongly recognize that this delay will comes as a disappointment to the many fans who have been looking forward to the launch of Metroid Prime 4.Īlthough the previous development team had never officially been announced, project descriptions uncovered on LinkedIn suggested that Bandai Namco’s Singapore studio were most likely handling the title. This change will essentially mean restarting development from the beginning, so the completion of the game will be delayed from our initial internal plan. Previous work on Metroid Prime 4 has now been scrapped and the game has officially been delayed.ĭespite the setback, Takahashi confirmed that the project would still be going ahead – this time with Retro Studios and producer Kensuke Tanabe on board to help create a game that would “meet our fans’ expectations”. Now, more than 19 months later, Nintendo’s Head of Development Shinya Takahashi has revealed that the game simply wasn’t up to Nintendo’s quality standards. Metroid Prime 4 was first announced to be in development for Switch during E3 2017’s Nintendo Direct. The game will now undergo development from scratch with series producer Kensuke Tanabe working collaboratively alongside Retro Studios. Nintendo has announced that development work for Metroid Prime 4 has been binned due to unsatisfactory quality.
