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Metroid Prime 4 Development update


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I think the fact that Prime 4's previous development is considered rush says it all about how bad development was going. While June 2017 to a likely Nov.-Dec. 2019 release wouldn't have been the longest gap for a Prime sequel, that would have still been the second longest behind Corruption's 2 years and 9 months from Echoes. To me, the time frame for the development of Prime 4 since its announcement was right, but the constructed team wasn't. I'm confident in a November 2021 release and at the latest an August 2022 title. Elsewhere, mainly on Nintendo Life, I've seen a handful of 2023 predictions and spotted a couple for 2024. At that point, I'm better off skipping Prime 4 with how critical I would be.

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3 hours ago, Kezay said:

I don't think it had anything to do with being rushed as it's hard to really determine that from what scant information there is surrounding the game.

I wasn't commenting on anything official about the development. I was commenting on the Youtube channels covering the news acting like Prime 4 was being rushed and that they were glad Nintendo stepped in to restart development with Retro Studios. I'm just saying I don't think the period of development Prime 4 looked like it was going to have is rushed at all as it was around the usual time span for previous Prime sequels.

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I guess part of me's still bitter with Kensuke Tanabe after the presentation and marketing of Federation Force, but if nothing else, this delay makes me further question his competency. As aforementioned, we probably won't know what new/unknown team attempted Prime 4 before Nintendo came and hit the reset button & brought in Retro to help, but we do know Tanabe was involved from the start, and whatever he had cooked up with MP4 in its original form didn't impress Nintendo enough to go through with it... I'm still curious as to what he has planned for Sylux, but my faith/confidence in him otherwise is shaky at best, though at least if Prime 4 still proves good enough to be worth the wait, I'll feel a little better about having him on board again, like some were with Sakamoto after Samus Returns.

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9 hours ago, DranSeasona said:

I’m not sure it’s fair to place the blame so heavily on Tanabe and call into question his competency. We have no idea what happened behind the scenes. There could be a whole host of reasons development failed and they had to reset, but I think it says something that they kept him on.

I mean it's all speculation, but I kinda interpret it as Nintendo not wanting to risk leaving him completely to his own devices again after Federation Force and it power bombing, so they brought in some known capable hands (Retro) to make sure Prime 4 gets well received by fans. Tanabe was involved in the Prime Trilogy too, but only as a producer, so hard to give him that much credit there.

 

Not much a fan of the guy for things outside of Metroid too. He was the reason K. Rool and Kremlings took a forced hiatus with the DKC reboot as he specifically said "no crocodiles" to Retro (thankfully, K. Rool in Smash is going to change that for DK in the future), and is the reason for the Paper Mario sterilization. The rumors about Tanabe not being on good terms with Retro I only take with a grain of salt though. I suppose outright accusing him of MP4's development disarray is a bit much/harsh, but when there's no other known party to blame here, it's easy to I guess. He can still have good ideas sometimes like with gameplay, and my slight beef with him is nothing compared to the hate and vitriol people had and some still have with Sakamoto.

Edited by Ridley Prime
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I guess I see where you’re coming from, Ride. And don’t get me wrong, I find this super frustrating too (MP1 is one of my favourite games). It’s just when there’s nothing but speculation to go on for all this behind the scenes stuff... I get a little wary.

 

In any case, I am hoping at least for some nice games this year and next to tide me over for a while until this is finally released. Distracting myself should help curb the disappointment. :P 

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  • Chrom featured this topic

Prime 4 in its previous state was probably on track to be the Prime Series' Other M. If you look at the Prime Series, it has had more and more story brought directly to the player with nearly each sequel. With the exception of Hunters, going from Metroid Prime 2 to Federation Force the story has been more spoon fed to the player and less of an optional experience. Kensuke Tanabe, around 2 years prior to the announcement of Metroid Prime 4, was stating that he wanted to focus on the relationship between Samus and Sylux for the game while doing rounds for Federation Force. It's not too far off of what Sakamoto wanted to do with Other M based on what he wanted Metroid fans to really know about where Samus's character was much of that response. Nintendo couldn't let that kind of reception happen for a highly anticipated Nintendo Switch game. I do blame Kensuke Tanabe for the game's direction and for why the development wasn't transferred and restarted sooner. As far as I'm aware, Tanabe is the development team's line with Nintendo, and if he's not voicing concern then Nintendo may not be aware until they're wanting the game to show.

 

I don't believe Tanabe is working with Retro Studios for anything other than to provide the frame of the game's plot and settings and then he's hands off beyond that outside of updating Nintendo. It's still important for Prime 4 to have a story, and there's an expectation of what that story should be about, but it shouldn't be story dominant. I think Prime 4 can tell the story it needs to tell by being similar in structure to Prime 2's. I don't know if they can be as minimal as the first Prime.

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  • 5 months later...

 

So MP4 still hasn't found an art director, it seems. If they had their shit together, you would think such a key position for overseeing a game's development would've been found by now.

 

I won't lie, the Breath of the Wild 2 reveal at E3 made this game's situation even more frustrating in hindsight. I get it though, BotW 2 has the luxury of using the engine from the first one, while MP4 requires a new engine and all that.

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  • 3 months later...

I understand since Samus Returns coming out so late in the 3DS’ life span was partly to blame for it not doing quite as well long run as it otherwise could’ve, but with the Switch and how successful it is, I still think will be supported longer than the average system. Either way, may see some first real MP4 footage by like next year’s E3 now if we’re lucky.

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