Metroid Prime 4 was announced back in E3 2017, with a logo. The revered series brought the Metroid series to be a competent FPS, the three games prior was done by Retro Studios.
In a video message by Shinya Takahashi, Senior Managing Executive Officer at Nintendo, has revealed the development of the anticipated sequel has been restarted from scratch.
The project was lead by producer Kensuke Tanabe with an unrevealed development team (though we did hear rumours about it), but now he will be working with Retro Studios.
“By collaborating and developing with Retro Studios, we believe we can make this game something that will meet our fans’ expectations,” Takahashi said.
“We did not make this decision lightly. This change will essentially mean restarting development from the beginning, so the completion of the game will be delayed from our initial internal plan.”
The reasoning? The current development did not meet Nintendo’s standards for a Metroid Prime sequel.
You can watch the full video message here:
This is a huge setback for Metroid Prime 4, but getting the original developers back might instill some needed goodwill from fans. There have been a few questionable spin-off games when fans wanted a proper Metroid game.
Metroid Prime 4 is still scheduled to arrive on Nintendo Switch, but don’t hold your breath, it will be a while until we actually see more news on this.
Via Gematsu