The Metroid Prime franchise received numerous awards for its first three games, and since the fourth title in the series was announced, everyone has been eager for more news about this game coming to Switch. After a long wait, Nintendo representative Shinya Takahashi recently appeared before the public to provide an update on this promising project.
Below is a summary of Shinya Takahashi's official statement.
"(...) We are deeply aware of the great expectations that fans of the Metroid Prime series have for this title. We especially felt the passionate words from fans that we heard when we first announced this title at E3 the previous year. (...) We must inform you that the current development progress has not met the standards we seek in a sequel to the Metroid Prime series.
Nintendo always pursues the highest quality in our games; during development, we challenge ourselves every day and confront whether the game is living up to that quality. If we are not satisfied with the quality, we cannot confidently deliver it to our customers, and the game will not meet our fans' expectations. (...) We therefore had to make a difficult decision as a development team. We decided to reexamine and change the development structure itself. Specifically, we decided that producer Kensuke Tanabe would work in trust and collaboration with the studio that developed the original Metroid Prime series, Retro Studios in the United States, and restart development from the beginning. (...).
We recognize that this delay will disappoint many fans who are eagerly awaiting the release of Metroid Prime 4. I would like to extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to everyone for the delay. It will be a long road before we can provide another update on development progress. (...) On behalf of Nintendo and Retro Studios, I sincerely thank you for your understanding. Thank you very much."
This news makes us consider several things. First, it is difficult to call it a delay, since a release date for Metroid Prime 4 had not even been announced at that point. Another interesting detail is that the studio responsible for the excellent main trilogy is now in charge of the fourth game. This will certainly please the vast majority of the franchise's fans. However, many members of the team that produced the first games in the series are no longer associated with Retro Studios, making the company name the only advantage. All we can do now is wait. Still, knowing Nintendo's degree of perfectionism with Metroid, we imagine that the conclusion of this "saga" will not disappoint.
