The Great Metroid Prime 4 Delay

2017. By this point it had been 10 years since the last mainline Metroid Prime game. One of the many reasons E3 2017 was considered outstanding for Nintendo was the annoucement that Metroid Prime 4 was in development for the Nintendo Switch. The fandom went ballistic over this wonderful news. Even though Retro Studios wasn't handling the development, the fact that a new Metroid Prime game was being made was cause for celebration.

E3 2018 has came and went and there was absolutely nothing to show for Metroid Prime 4. Not any trailers, no new screens, zilch. This got people wondering just what was going on with the game's development, myself included. I thought that perhaps we'd get something at this year's E3, but Nintendo surprised us with information regarding Metroid Prime 4 much, much sooner.

I imagine the initial response to this news before giving it some time to sink in was a little something like this.

Development for Metroid Prime 4 has been scrapped entirely in order to start from the ground up because Nintendo was not happy with the way it was currently going. This update comes as a bitter sweet pill to swallow. According to Game Informer's Imaran Khan, Nintendo had development teams spread out across different countries. Perhaps other companies make games this way but this is Nintendo we're talking about here, a company that should have zero problems get all development staff under one roof, so unless spreading out development is absolutely necessary, having all staff in the same building should be the default way to do things. Then again, I'm not a game developer nor am I the head of some corporation ranking in millions of bucks, so what do I know? Regardless, Metroid Prime 4 is now in the very capable hands of Retro Studios, the team behind the first three Prime games.

This scrapped development pushes the game back considerably. We have no release window for when the game will drop so it could be years before a release date is given. Heck, we've probably got a serious wait on our hands before we even see a trailer now.

Still, this scratched development isn't without good reason. Whatever state the game was in, the results were less than satisfactory for Nintendo so I firmly believe they made the right call. Nintendo makes some pretty bizarre decisions but this certainly isn't one of them. As you know and countless others have said, so many games get released these days in a very sorry state only to be patched up later. Or they get released in an awful state and are left that way just so the publishers can rake in dough off of initial sales. A terrible business model, yes, but one that is sadly heavily operated upon.

You know, Metroid Prime 4's troubled development reminds me of the original Metroid Prime. Development for that game was not that smooth at the beginning with fans and critics alike being highly skeptical of the game being adequate, let alone a rousing success. Yet despite the hardships leading up the game's release, Metroid Prime went on to be a critically acclaimed title and proved that Metroid could work in the third dimension. I like to think history will repeat it self with Metroid Prime 4. It will take a few years, but better to wait for a quality product than get a rushed one sooner.