NintendObs Thinks: Why it is now safe to get hyped about Metroid Prime 4.
Nintendo's commitment to Metroid Dread is a good omen for their handling of the next 3D Metroid.
Remember that big announcement from E3 2017? When with nothing but the Samus design in the ether, the number 4, a logo and the iconic Metroid Prime theme, Nintendo announced Metroid Prime 4 to be in development? Then you may also remember when in January 2019, Nintendo’s head of first-party software Shinya Takahashi announced that the development of Metroid Prime 4 had not met Nintendo’s standards and was being restarted from the beginning with the original producer of the series, Kensuke Tanabe, and the original studio behind the Metroid Prime trilogy, Retro Studios wholly-owned by Nintendo, now in charge of the project.
The game would always show up in Nintendo documents with a TBD release date next to Bayonetta 3 and the Sequel to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, having consequently no update for years ever since, which only made sense given its altered development circumstances. From where I stood, it was simple. As long as they had no footage for the game, which they still haven’t shown yet, to me the game did not exist. There is no reason why I should not apply to Nintendo the same standards I apply onto other videogame companies. If all you have to show is a CGI trailer, or a name, or a promise, but nothing that we gamers can visualize ourselves playing, please understand that it is safer for our own expectations not to consider your game to be a thing at this time.
However. With the announcement of Metroid Dread, and the way Metroid Dread was introduced, everything changed. Before presenting this new game, the same Shinya Takahashi began with a mention of Metroid Prime 4, this arguably being Nintendo’s first public allusion to the game since declaring the delay, and this time Nintendo’s first-party boss was a lot more happy to talk about it. One thing now seems certain to me at the very least which is that internally, after all these years, Nintendo is now confident in what they’re doing with the first Metroid Prime title developed in HD, and I would argue they even have a release window for launch that they’re targeting so far only known to themselves.