It's all the rage, despite Nintendo joining the HD age in 2012, for fans to produce classic big N franchises in modern game engines. With the Unreal Engine not being formally supported on the Wii U - though games using the engine can be ported to the system - it seems to be a popular choice for aspiring programmers. It wasn't long ago that we had a look at Mario in Unreal Engine 4.
Now there's a Metroid demo in Unreal Engine 4, in which Samus explores 'Sun Temple'. It's very, very shiny, and there are a few aspects of the design - such as the arm cannon - that don't seem quite right. That said, we do see both first-person and third-person movement, and efforts like these are admirable for what they achieve. Creator CryZENx is even offering the demo to download, but that'll surely be hit by a takedown notice once Nintendo picks it up.
As always it's intriguing to see how others visualise a new look for Nintendo franchises, especially as we're yet to receive a HD Metroid game.
Check it out below and let us know what you think.
[source gamesradar.com]
Comments 65
Bit rough on animations but I'd sell my legs to play a metroid game like that.
Maybe in another life.
Video won't show on my phone😒 Drat... gotta find a computah!
This is literally all I want from a metroid game right now. Unfortunately, nintendo doesn't know how to make mature atmospheric games anymore.
It looks and runs terribly IMO (animation wise). Maybe if it were more "Metroid-like" in atmosphere and way less shiny. But I guess it IS just an UE4 test piece.
These "Demos" are really starting to tick me off. So many people seem to think that " hey if this guy can do it why can't Nintendo do it". These Demos are very simple to put together, using default in engine assets/effects and a basic knowledge of animation, coding and modelling, a lot of people could do this.
Sure it's cool to see Samus in HD, but I would suggest that all of these demos look worse than games already in existence. These Demos will look like crap in a few months (they already do, but I digress), but super mario 3d world, Metroid Prime (1,2,3) and Skyword Sword will look great for years due to art style and attention to detail in animation and modelling.
I don't mean to be too high strung, but with these videos keeping on popping up this feeling has continued to grow.
Looks very strange. I don't think the overall environment and atmosphere match Metroid. It's pretty but it doesn't capture the feel of a true Metroid game.
"Unreal Engine not being formally supported on the Wii U" - what about UE3?
This is like mailing someone pictures of their dead spouse.
Out of all Nintendo's popular franchises Metroid is really the only one that makes sense going the more realistic graphics route because it is not as cartoony. (Not saying that is bad at all just the only franchise Nintendo has that has this type of art style). Kind of odd that the maker of this didn't choose some sort of space map. I figure they just downloaded a random map online that was public domain but surely there had to be a space map they were allowed to use somewhere.
Why is samus breathing so heavily? She's a hardcore bounty hunter!
Also quite easy to spot with the super shiny suit
My eyes! Oh! My eyes hurt! Those spikes of shine!
I don't like it. It looks too weird. If they didn't use standard Unreal assets (which mainly look like Gears of War assets) and created Metroid looking assets maybe it wouldn't look as weird.
Meh.
Looks pretty, though unfitting as it isn't in a Metroid-type setting. Anyways, these demos don't mean much as they're in a controlled setting. Tech demos companies release are never representative of what a full game would look like because the demo is a controlled sequence in a controlled setting, where as a full game has so many other factors going in to it that prevent the visuals from looking as good as the tech demo.
I still think that Nintendo's NX home console should support Unreal Engine 4.
Lets make a comment without using vulgar language please
~Vader
that awful, ambient music....so reminiscent of Other M......meh
Surely I'm not the only person who thinks this looks absolutely hideous? Gamecube Metroid looks much better than this.
That looks great for a fan effort, though perhaps a bit too shiny. I'd much rather play a Metroid game that looked like this than Federation Force.
@TheRealThanos I guess you haven't played Gears of War 3. I think Gears of War 1 even had a lot of those assets, just wasn't that bright. EDIT: I was also talking about the assets, not the lighting effects.
@Koniec None of the versions of Unreal are officially supported, although the Wii U can run everything below v4, as has been shown by most of the Xbox 360 ports that run on v3.5 or higher. Although as we all know now, many games are nowhere near being optimized enough towards the Wii U's hardware, since the Xbox 360 is CPU oriented, while the Wii U is GPGPU oriented, resulting in lousy ports on a console that is quite capable of outperforming the console those games came from in the first place.
@The_Mysteron "Surely I'm not the only person who thinks this looks absolutely hideous?" Well, I thought I was quite elaborate...
@DefHalan Actually I did. Haven't finished it, though so maybe the shiny castles come after the first half of the game... The only ones I haven't played are Judgment and the Xbox One remake. As far as I can recall, there is nothing near as shiny as this castle in Gears. This building looks like it's made out of porcelain.
Eh, better than the Mario and Pokemon demos.
There's something about the way Samus walked in that I find humurous.
Nintendo needs to make Metroid Prime 4 for NX in this engine.
Not too fond of the architecture, nor how shiny Samus's armor is. I'll just stick to the Prime Trilogy and Federation Force, thank you.
@NintendoFan64 Your avatar is hilarious! That's just the laugh I needed today!
Nice try though :lol:
I hope the next Metroid looks exactly like this and plays like that and has the same sound and atmosphere and it has no aliens or caverns or secrets or moody lighting or anything to do but watch Samus polish her armor and do silly walks and flips with mega motion blur and roll around in a spazzy morph ball and have funny random flat flame images appearing around her gun. That would be awesome. s
In all seriousness, I had a moment of 2001-esque vibe of Samus in a normal simple environment and thought, "Hey that would be cool." And then it kept playing and playing... ugh.
Metroid is on life-support at this point and even the fans are making it worse.
The sound design reminded me this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qukCulDOJzg
Why modern sound designers of AAA games are so awful? Why they aren't allowed to put melodic musics in their games anymore?
People are too hard on these demos. They're just a quick little look at how aspects of these franchises might look with sick graphics. They're obviously rough around the edges because they're using pre-existing assets. I think they're fun, and they get me dreaming about what Nintendo could do.
You know, if Nintendo wanted to. Which they obviously don't. XP
The graphics are nice, but it's the atmosphere and blend of platforming/shooting that matters more. That said, the first person is still milesbeyod what I saw in Other M, though that games was hardly as bad as people would love to believe.
Premade UE assets? Nothing new. Using advanced lighting mechanics as a distraction from the rest being incredibly outdated and stiff? Par for the course. Using a Nintendo character for absolutely no reason other than "this is how it would look if Nintendo did HD gaming" throwdowns? Yep, he sure nailed the theme.
Using the awful Other M model for a Metroid showoff? Inexcusable! Not canon, not cool, instant failure! BAM!
Other then the location in the demo not being very Metroid like, the graphics and going from third person to first person look amazing. Nintendo, look at this video and take some freakin hints
Jesus Christ, what's the people in this comment section. Guy makes a Metroid demo for Unreal Engine 4 and people lose their F****** minds over it. Like calm down! Take a chill pill!
The graphics and framerate would be different if there were some actual enemies, desctructible/moving objects, items, different weapons exchangable on a whim, a control/option interface.
Much cpu power can go into beautiful graphics when you take away essential and complex gameplay elements.
It looks terrible.
Waaaaaaay too much specular. UE4's environments look as brilliant as ever though. Would've looked nicer if they had done a model from scratch and used high res textures.
She runs slower than her running animation would have you believe.
Metroid can't afford graphics like these. Not historically anyway.
The animations look terrible, too much shine and bloom, and the glowing effect on Samus is terrible. Sorry, but this looks as bad as the latest Issac Smashified.
@allav866 I know it's hilarious. Why do you think I picked it?
@NebulaGamer They are the worst indeed. Beyond toxic.
hate almost everything about that, the flame from her cannon, the animation, the BLINDING light from the morph ball, and OOH that breathing!!!!
What puts me off the most about this isn't the arm cannon, but the heavy breathing in first person mode. 3 minutes of gameplay and I'm already annoyed by it. Other than that, my only real gripe is that the environment isn't very Metroidy, it's too bright.
Love these. It's what Nintendo games COULD look like if they didn't worry so much about gimmicks and tried to make the most beautiful game possible using legit engines. Nintendo is so out of touch. If the NX came out with a new Metroid or Zelda that looked this good graphically hordes of people would buy it. As is, they will be putting out a cartoony style to hide their inability to develop for HD and cheapness in using proper hardware.
Gross. Also its very strange seeing the Prime Trilogy's arm cannon on Samus' Other M model.
I need to watch with sunglasses... 2shiny4me
Whats so strange here?
It looked fine to me...
It doesn't look a bit like Metroid. They just took an snazzy location, bloomed the hell out of it and shoved in Samus. Caves and space ships. That is Metroid.
@smileyface97 Yeah Nintendo could easily do the same, but this demo looks dull to me, samus gun looks way to shiny
That looks really cool! The only thing that looks off is the running speed, but other than that, I like it. Make some Metroid-esque environments and it'll look even better!
I'm sorry, it LOOKS good, but the animation. That RUN of Samus'. Jeez. It looks like one of those cartoon runs where the character is TRYIN to get away but ends up runnin in place for 5 seconds beore they take off. It just... doesn't look all that great imo.
I really hope people are kidding when they say stuff like...
"This looks good."
"I want the next Metroid to look like this!"
"THIS IS WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN INSTEAD OF FEDERATION FORCE!"
In my opinion, this looks bad and it doesn't have the feel or atmosphere of any Metroid I've ever played. Hell, you all give Other M so much flak, but I'd rather play that over THIS any day.
Nope.
Sorry but it looks awful. Something being metal does not mean it should be super shiny like that. Combined with the over bright lights it's hard to make out the character model and details at all. Plus that flame effect on every shot obscures the actual shot, it was really hard to see where things were going.
The lack of HUD in first person mode doesn't help either, nor does the also super shiny stock scenery.
I know it's just a little demo done by fans for the fun of "imagine how good it'd look", but if you want us to do that properly you've got to do it properly too. Same goes for the Mario, Sonic, Pokémon and whatever other ones they did. They all looked bad, I'll fitting and didn't give a proper impression of how good this stuff could look.
@NinjaWaddleDee Typical millennial comment.
Well thanks ever so much "Vader", for completely and unnecessarily erasing an entire comment that took me quite some time to type.
Great way to make a point. I like @theblackdragon's way of correcting people WAY better. You could have just edited out the offensive part that was, if I remember correctly a SINGLE word or line, instead of ripping out multiple segments that I will never be able to reproduce in the exact same way. Way to go, sport...
Wow this is the most well polished turd I've ever seen. As a fan pet project, not bad but if I would have seen this as any effort from Nintendo on an new entry for Metroid I would have been severely disappointed at such abysmal graphics/lighting/texture/atmosphere.
Sammy baby !
@jrob23 So now their games are full of gimmicks? You don't know what your talking about. The best looking games on a nintendo console are usually the ones made by nintendo. Do you want nintendo to sacrifice gamplay and level design to make their games look as pretty as possible in trailers?
It becoming so sad that someone is going to all this effort to make these videos that are truly awful. There is nothing to like about this. It's a cheap trick. What really bugs me is the lighting. No creativity.
@kyuubikid213 Actually I grew up with the SNES, thank you very much. I'm sorry that I would like to see the Metroid franchise taken in a more realistic and creepy direction, as opposed to the trash we are getting with federation force. Sorry. I don't want a game exactly like this by any means, but I would however like to have a better looking Metroid game.
@NinjaWaddleDee First off, Federation Force isn't even out yet, so calling it trash doesn't make sense. Try again after you've played it.
Second, Metroid's never not been a creepy game and as far as Nintendo's titles go, it's the most "realistic."
I did not grow up with the SNES, but I have played pretty much every Metroid title (as I'm sure you have as well) with the exception of Pinball. This demo doesn't look or feel like Metroid to me in any way and I'd be personally offended if Nintendo made the next Metroid look anything like this. In my opinion, Metroid Prime looks better than this demo by a long shot. Prime has better lighting, atmosphere, and effects than this demo and, most importantly, it feels like Metroid.
This demo is not Metroid and I really don't think it looks good in the slightest. If ANY game came out looking like this, I can see the reviewers tearing it apart on visuals alone.
Yep that's another character placed into a default Unreal Engine demo environment alright. Looks more like it should be in a Tomb Raider game than Metroid.
@FLUX_CAPACITOR I don't really think these environments are made by those who post these kind of video. So it's just Samus plopped into a tech demo environment made to show off the engine(and not be representative of a whole game) that the video poster didn't create.
Excessive. I don't like what I'm seeing.
I think Nintendo will make something better looking for their next 'proper' Metroid game but that because I doubt it will be before the year 2031
The Samus-model looks quite nice, but there's something wrong with the arm-buster.
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