Topic: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

@Bolt_Strike

Word round the campfire is that Bandai Namco Singapore was working on Metroid Prime 4 as well as Ridge Racer 8 for Switch. Both projects folded for...reasons.

@Grumblevolcano I don't personally buy into the they are in Smash so there's gonna be mega sales now. Bayonetta sales haven't sky rocketed since she was added and Fire Emblem was on the brink of being cancelled til Awakening revived it despite the additional exposure of having 99% of the Smash roster being FE sword users.

MP4 is gonna sell how much it's gonna sell. Whatever happened during the development process hardly matters. What matters is how they reveal the game, when they reveal it, how they market it, and word of mouth. But it's a big Nintendo IP, so it will probably sell a couple of million regardless.

It will sell well as in millions of copies. The bigger question is will it be a classic? Will the wait to worth it? I’m not so sure as other seem to be. Not the biggest Retro studios fan.

Impossible to say right now, and not really something to worry about. Though at the same time it's difficult to imagine what's left of Retro after all this time. It's been like seven years since their last proper game.

@Octane That’s true, I’ve been concerned about the state of Retro after the consistent silence surrounding them for all this time. I wonder if those Star Fox Grand Prix rumours were actually true or they were developing an original project. What worries me there is if those projects were put on hiatus or even canned when they shifted focus to Metroid Prime 4. But their heavy recruitment of experienced talent from across the industry has hopefully began to fill the chasm of what was left behind from the mass departures since Prime 3 ended production.

@NintendoWiiDS The fact that we haven't seen any game from them in 7 years speaks volumes. If they were releasing something, it would've came out around the time Prime 4's development restarted. Most likely whatever they were working on in between got cancelled, and I'm not sure Prime 4 even had anything to do with it.

Maybe this two to three year wait IS the game. 🤔

They call him Nintendolife's Nostradamus.

The reason why the game's in development hell, is because they're focusing on making it a reality. Genetically engineering Metroids and Ridley, before releasing them, and forcing people to go out and hunt them down.

If Metroid Prime 4 doesn't become the highest selling Metroid game, which would mean around 3 million at minimum, it should be time for Nintendo to call it when it comes to developing new Metroid games. I think releases prior to MP4 would have helped, especially a MPT HD for Switch, but I still think Nintendo with the right strategy would be able to build MP4's hype back up in time for release through Directs. If Nintendo has a decent sized audience for Metroid, Metroid Prime 4 should be able to hit 3 million and then some on the Switch.

@I-U I disagree and Sony is making exactly that mistake like with the situation about Japan Studio. For context Astro Bot is Japan Studio's biggest franchise so Sony is restructuring Japan Studio to only work on Astro Bot meaning Sony's 1st party library becomes less varied.

If Prime 4 is a good game and doesn't sell well, Nintendo should accept that it's ok for Metroid to be a niche franchise and smaller franchises are important in creating a diverse, interesting game lineup.

Jim Ryan doesn't understand that and every Sony franchise is becoming the next AAA open world movie game as a result with the franchises that wouldn't work with that concept being scrapped.

@Grumblevolcano This cannot be achieved by having development teams otherwise assigned to Metroid work on creating new IPs for Nintendo? It's getting to that point where even though I've liked my time with Metroid as a series, if it's not bringing back a decent return for the effort put in, I would much rather Nintendo take these resources to create and explore new IPs that may be more financially successful while still maintaining good critic and fan reception. 3 million shouldn't be asking too much for Prime 4's performance. Now if the game turns out to be divisive, that would be different. I don't think a divisive product will be released though hopefully.

@Slowdive

Interesting. I wonder "what those people have said" could be? The most wild thing I've heard speculated is that MP4 will have competitive multiplayer included a la Metroid Prime Hunters...or something. Hence the quiet, long development cycle. You know, "Nintendo needs to add more games that necessitate having a NSO sub", and all that jazz.

shrug

Who knows?

@Magician I don't think that multiplayer is that crazy to speculate about, especially if Prime 4's development takes its release into next year or later. Metroid Prime Hunters, a DS game, had that and a single player ready to go in around 2 years. I think the worst take I've seen on development has been suggesting that Prime 4 is going to be used to push sells for a non-existent Switch model.

@I-U

Oh I don't know, I wouldn't qualify that as a bad take. Nintendo is going to need first party games beyond BotW2 to shill a new Switch iteration to current Switch owners. I think it's a fair assumption that only Nintendo's core audience is concerned about potentially upgrading their experience. There are probably over 70+ million Switch owners who don't give a lick about the Switch Pro discussion.

@Slowdive

It's difficult not being at least a little bit pessimistic. Retro Studios haven't shipped a game in over seven years. A majority of whomever worked on the Prime Trilogy originally are most likely not with the studio anymore. Although, Retro Studios seems to be hiring the right people. Lots of former Halo devs and writers, but it seems that environment design and creation is still way behind schedule.

https://careers.nintendo.com/retro-studios/

@Magician I can't remember where I read it but it's something like 9 people left from the Prime days, none of which are notable/key workers. The key personnel left to form a new studio with their biggest game being ReCore and ports.

"a DS game" is the entire key to why its different. It's abundantly clear that HD game development is a humongous task for so many developers, and in fact taking twice as long to make a game that has less content than a DS game is unfortunately somewhat believable.

My assumption is that if Prime 4 has substantial multiplayer, it will only be because another team made it.

Assuming the Switch Pro exists, a vast majority of the audience who would buy a Prime 4 would likely have already bought a Switch Pro for Breath of the Wild 2, assuming too that that will get a substantial bump on the Switch Pro if not being Pro exclusive. Metroid Prime 4 needs to be at its best for the current Switch owner base, unless a Switch successor is around the corner rather than a revision. Its best chance of being successful is taking a slice out of the current pie.

I still believe Prime 4 was planned for a late 2019/early 2020 release following its E3 2017 "in development" announcement, which is why Nintendo made sure to be out in front of Prime 4 speculation in 2019 announcing the restart. I think it would have been fair to expect Prime 4 late this year based on that if not for the Covid-19 pandemic. It could be on track for that still, but I think it's more likely a 2022 game at the latest. 2022 would be a better year to market the game too with the 20 year anniversary for the original Metroid Prime.

If it's going to have a development time close to Breath of the Wild's, it shouldn't be wrong to expect it to have a substantial amount of content relative to a DS game made in half the time. Comparing development times of a game like Spirit Tracks to that of BoTW, there is no doubt the latter with much more time in development has more to experience. Breath of the Wild is for most worth its wait, and so should Prime 4. I shouldn't be thinking that a 2023 Metroid Prime game on much better technology is giving me half the content of a 2006 Metroid Prime game on inferior technology. It doesn't have to have both a multiplayer and single player, but if it is only a single player game that single player experience for Prime 4 should be substantial next to all prior Prime games with that much development time.