Rumors are a huge thing in the gaming industry, and to me, it’s really annoying when people keep saying the same ones repeatedly with no proof that they’re coming anytime soon. Then, when they DON’T always happen, they try to blame the developers or publishers and not themselves for having bad intel. One such example was when Retro Studios was allegedly making Metroid Prime Remastered, and the trilogy for the whole line was long rumored for the Nintendo Switch. It was THE most prominent rumor in certain circles for a long time, when many even insisted that “it was done” and Nintendo just had to release it. Except that wasn’t the case, and it was only the first game getting made.
Don’t get me wrong, the remaster was lauded for upgrading things in a nice way while keeping what made the game fun intact. In the recently released Metroid Prime 1–3: A Visual Retrospective, as noted by Nintendo Everything, Retro Studios revealed that various elements led to the remaster taking a much longer time to get out than gamers had hoped:
“The studio faced more than its share of challenges during the development of Metroid Prime Remastered. Some were uncontrollable forces like the global COVID pandemic that forced us home for two years and a couple of freak ice storms that left us without power and water for days. Internally, the more difficult parts of the project often involved a form of archeology. Hunting like Samus herself, we had to descend into the depths of a twenty- year-old database, exploring digital corridors to find what we needed. Moreover, a lot of the artists had backgrounds in more stylized games, so the learning curve for capturing this atmospheric, gritty, sci-fi world was steep.”
And that was just for the FIRST game in the trilogy; the next two titles were arguably far more complex and would take just as long to remaster, especially if they were upgraded to the visuals of the Nintendo Switch 2. Now that the team is in the final hurdles of getting Metroid Prime 4: Beyond done, we should let Retro Studios focus on that, and then, MAYBE, we’ll see about getting the full Prime Trilogy remastered. Priorities, you know?
Source: Nintendo Everything
