Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

I think you misunderstand what I was saying.

I think in 2017 when the Switch launched Nintendo’s plan was that Metroid Prime 4 would be finished by late 2020. It was planned to be their big game for this Christmas.

That clearly went out when they saw it wasn’t up to scratch. Now it’s 2022 at the earliest.

I tend to think it’s a game that will disappoint in the end - one way or another (though I hope I’m wrong).

@StuTwo Yeah that makes sense.

@StuTwo It’s not going to live up to the hype you are right there. It’s been so many years since the third game in the series, and then ever since that logo was revealed during E3 2017, the fans will be slowly building up impossible to meet expectations from the game - perhaps more so now Retro is back in charge. It’s kinda like if Valve teased Half Life 3 at this point.

I also wonder how well it will stack up against what Sony and Microsoft will be bringing to the table because it’ll be in direct competition with every other first person type of game out there. That may be real bad if the end result feels dated in any way, which it will visually at least.

@FragRed I think partly my trepidation is that I didn’t think Metroid Prime 2 or 3 were anywhere near as good as the original and I think that game template (the Zelda Lttp/Super Metroid one), great though it is, is a little stale and exhausting in 3D.

A Prime 4 that turns out to be an iterative sequel to Prime 3 is what the fan base is crying for... but I think it’s a monkey paw wish. That game design has a limited audience that will fall in love with it in 2020.

The alternative is to make Metroid Prime BoTW. That could go badly wrong game wise and have a rabid fan base from the off (even if it’s the game that has more potential to be a great landmark video game).

Aside from all that I think you’re right about it getting compared to next gen games and looking pale in comparison. Most Nintendo games don’t have to worry about that too much because they’re stylised graphics. Metroid looks a lot like Halo on much weaker hardware with a much smaller budget...

@StuTwo Depends on what you mean with ''Metroid Prime BOTW''. If if's a big open fields instead of narrow corridors, then yes, everyone has a good reason to be disappointed lol.

The Metroidvania structure is a must IMO. Non-negotiable.

@Octane I don’t mean open fields but non linear and with freedom of exploration instead of everything being locked behind soft and hard locks & keys (usually soft in Metroid).

The ideal for me would be having three or four ways to get past any given obstacle (Hollow Knight edges in this way).

The genius of Super Metroid is that it felt non linear (& unusually can be sequence broken) but it’s actually very linear. You see a long dark tunnel... but you can’t choose to risk exploring it because it’s literally locked until you have the space jump/super run etc.

I think that doesn’t work very well in a spatially large 3D game. It works better in a smaller game but that brings its own disappointments.

@StuTwo We know Nintendo are hiring a lot of talents, some seemingly from various other named studios to work on this new game, and while I hope that this will allow for Retro to come at this game with fresh new angles that will somehow please the fans of the original trilogy, while also attracting new gamers to the franchise, I feel like they may end up pleasing neither. It’s going to be very difficult whatever path they take I feel. But, then again, maybe Metroid as a franchise is always destined to be a niche audience franchise.

Nintendo are going to need to be careful about how they market this game and when they release it. As you said, they can’t risk it going toe to toe with FPS games from the likes of Microsoft, EA or Activision.

Most people consider New Horizons and Mario Odyssey to be the peak of their respective franchises so far, so I really have no reason to doubt Retro will somehow buck their generations-long trend of making extremely well-made games and end the streak that Nintendo's on with the Switch. It's always possible, but their track record just isn't there for me to be worried.

@FragRed I hope it turns out well. I love Super Metroid & the original Metroid Prime. I do think it’ll be a good game - I can just see it being a disappointment.

@TuVictus the slight proviso there is that they’ve got a generations long track record of making games that aren’t deemed good enough by Nintendo and then get canned without ever being shown.

I doubt we’ll ever get the inside story but they must have had a big Switch or Wii U project that didn’t live up to expectations (at least one!).

@StuTwo The fact Retro has had potentially so many canned games, I dare think about what they had been working on between Tropical Freeze release and taking on Metroid Prime 4, is something is not a good thing in my book. It starts to get you questioning why they struggle so much with getting games of a good enough standard and how much is this studio costing Nintendo to run?

@FragRed I think that’s probably part of the reason they’ve been called upon to do technical work for games like Mario Kart. It says to the bosses “hey we cost a lot but we’re useful!”

They do need to be releasing more to justify themselves though. It’s got to be positive for the future that they’ve hired a lot of people over the past couple of years...

...But the effects of that won’t be seen for years and it’s so modest next to what Microsoft has been doing.

@StuTwo I think that is something Nintendo as a whole needs to invest more into going forward. Whenever they release a console of PS4/Xbox One power they are going to struggle more than they already are to get games out the door on a regular basis.

All they need to focus on with Metroid Prime 4 is to make a cool game that incorporates Samus and the Metroid universe properly. Just the same as they did with Breath of the Wild and Link. If they let concern about disappointing fans that are rigidly locked to ideas from 20 years ago then we wouldn't have Breath of the Wild.

@gcunit I dunno. If they were making just a new 3D Metroid game I'd agree, but I think naming it Prime 4 sets an expectation that some it will follow in the footsteps of the Prime series, at least to a degree.

Like, imagine if Breath of the Wild had been named Ocarina of Time 2? I feel like there would've been a lot more backlash to it breaking series conventions.

I'm betting there's gonna be a Mario 35th Anniversary presentation some time in July, announcing Mario All Stars 2, (featuring 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy 1 and 2,) 3D World Deluxe, and Odyssey 2. All Stars and 3D world will release in Holiday 2020 and January 2021 respectively while Odyssey 2 will be pretty far off like BOTW2 and MP4.

Other games coming this year I'm guessing will be Pikmin 3, a new 2d Metroid, a Kirby spin off (probably not a retail release, just a small eshop game,) and a Windwaker or Skyward Sword HD remake. All these games will be revealed at a general direct in mid August (weird timing I know but hey, this is 2020 we're talking about) with the exception of Pikmin 3 which I believe will have a video announcement dropped similar to the recent Paper Mario.

If this does end up being so, I think our lineup would be Kirby in August, (shadow dropped after the direct,) Pikmin in late September, All Stars 2 in mid to late October, Metroid in mid November, and the Zelda remake in early December, with 3D World coming in January of next year.

In the meantime, I think we're gonna get video announcements dropped randomly like Paper Mario for Pokemon DLC, AC updates, and the Arms Smash DLC like @Grumblevolcano said. Those will probably be scattered throughout this and next month.

I'd really really love it if we got all these games this year but of course the virus is disrupting everything and the health and safety of the devs comes first.

IDK that we'll have a General Direct at all this year. If any, it'll probably be in the fall when the virus has hopefully run its course, the majority of the 2020 lineup has already been announced, and they have a bit more clarity as to when they can feasibly release the remaining games they have planned for this year but don't have a solid date. I do, however, think that if the Mario remaster rumor is true we'll have a Mario Direct in the next few months to announce them, and as a "one more thing" confirm that Odyssey 2 is in development like they did with BotW2.

Beyond that, in terms of the lineup for this year I think we'll see 2D Metroid announced as a shadowdrop like Origami King, and Mario Kart 9 as the big holiday game for this year. That's probably it for this year because of Coronavirus, but it should be just enough to get through the year.

@Bolt_Strike I honestly don't see them making Mario Kart 9 for the switch. They've already got Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which sold nearly 25 million copies worldwide and is the most sold game on the switch. What new features could they add to a new one to make it sell well on the switch other than it being a new mario kart? I could see it being on a switch successor.

I think Paper Mario will be the last new game announcement of the year, everything else being ports. Switch started strong despite being a bunch of Wii U ports so I still think 3D World will be the big holiday title.

@Laoak Mario Kart 8 is a port designed around the Wii U, the Switch hasn't had a Mario Kart game designed on it from the ground up. There's lots of things they could do with a Switch Mario Kart game to make it a step up from MK8D. They could use the Joycons to experiment with things like vehicle swapping/splitting mechanics, bringing back Double Dash as a gameplay mode, more characters from other IPs, adapting mechanics from Tour such as R and T variants and a coin shop (minus the horrible microtransactions and gacha mechanics). Mario Kart 8 Deluxe shouldn't stop them from releasing a new Mario Kart game at all, it's a 3 year old Wii U port of a game that's already 6 years old and Mario Kart games have released like clockwork every 2-3 years for the last 20 years. It's not hard to believe they've come up with new ideas in those last 6 years.

@Bolt_Strike Pretty sure the Mario Kart game for 2-3 years after MK8 Deluxe was Mario Kart Tour. As Switch already had a Mario Kart game they decided to release a game on mobile instead of a second game on Switch.