Retro Studios Is Remodelling Its HQ In 2021 To Aid Development Of Metroid Prime 4

At least it will be well optimized for the Switch Pro... or maybe Switch 2!

Why does everyone think this is all for Metroid Prime 4 at this point? My guess is they're expanding this much so they can have more than one game in the pipeline at a time. You don't need to grow like this for a single game.

I’m not a metroid fan but I hope this is good, given the investment.

I wonder if Nintendo is regretting the reveal?

Ah l feel hyper energy coming in!

@holygeez03 Switch 3.

I hope a new DKC is also in the works (with K. Rool this time).

We're probably not getting this game for a while, which I'm fine with. I just hope that Nintendo releases a Metroid Prime Trilogy on Switch.

I'm sad that this means the game is MUCH farther out than I had hoped.

But between the talent absorbed and this new move, I am getting the sense Nintendo has thrown Retro a massive budget. I hope this new entry gives the franchise the boost it desperately needs, gives it a better seat at the table.

Ha, now they hired a new building.

@holygeez03 they prematurely revealed it after the backlash from Federation Force, but the positive energy has long run out since its been three years since the last Metroid game.

This game can’t be for the current Switch, or even the Switch Pro. There’s no way. The skills of these developers goes far beyond what the Switch can handle.

This is for sure the killer app for whatever Nintendo console comes out next. And I’m totally hyped for it

What happened to the other game they were developing?

I'm going to assume this is most likely going to be another TP or BOTW situation where it launches on both the Switch and next gen system.

@NGNYS What kind of studio do you think spits out 1-2 (quailty) games a year!? The Company as a whole, Definitely, but not a whole dang studio!

@ItsOKToBeOK I completely disagree because BotW exists as well as so many fantastic smaller-scale games.

You don't need console power to create the best games.

@NoLife Probably got cancelled.

@holygeez03 call me crazy but i strongly believe this is the reason of Reggies resignation

Just how little development of Prime 4 has occurred? Seriously, it feels like this game is 4 years away from release still.

@TheFrenchiestFry theres a saying you cant please everyone these days especially gamers.

Nintendo really shouldn't have revealed Prime 4 in 2017. Sure there would've been more backlash towards Samus Returns being a 3DS exclusive but let's be honest here, every 3DS exclusive announced after the Switch was revealed got a load of backlash for being 3DS exclusive anyway.

Rename the game CyberMetroid Prime Infinite 2077

@Grumblevolcano if namco didnt screw it up in the first place then we wouldnt have to wait a few more years even though nintendo should of went straight to retro in the first place for prime 4.

$500,000 is nothing for an office in Texas. This is such a non-story!

(Edited location)

@Lionyone Retro are based in the US, not Japan.

Reading the comments is like having a morning coffee. Simply marvelous.
Be patient, greatness awaits.

Metroid Prime 4 is starting to have a slight Duke Nukem Forever odor.

@Lionyone the number is in dollars, not yen and it's for a building in Texas, not Tokyo.

The story is less about how much they are spending on a building and more about how the Retro staff is expanding.

Enough recipe for success.. anything short of 9.4 rating(must play), when it eventually comes out is a failure.

That Halo employee is gonna suggest grey, no-detail corridors instead of different complex details in every corridor.

This is all a smokescreen. Anyone in the know knows that this is a clear indication of...SHADOW DROP 12AM TONIGHT!

Metroid Prime 4 in 2024! Woo!

This game is never coming out

@FragRed My bad! Still not much money for an office.

it will be released on the 5DS

Huge Metroid fan, but I'd love to know if Retro plans to ever do a third DK Country game. I'd be all over that.

@holygeez03 Probably not, I bet it moved a lot of systems. If I hadn't bought a Switch at launch, I sure would have after E3 2017 with Splatoon 2, Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade 2 and Metroid Prime 4 on the horizon.

@AnnoyingFrenzy We can only hope that Bill Dïng will be a stable, unfaltering addition to the team.

@RiasGremory It was still going to be a long wait even if the restart never happened (we got a logo at E3 2017, that's it). Prime 4's announcement for sure was damage control over Samus Returns being 3DS exclusive just like the Pokemon segment was damage control over Ultra Sun/Moon being 3DS exclusive.

Bayonetta 3 at the 2017 Game Awards was probably damage control over Switch being perceived as a port machine.

@ItsOKToBeOK,

I think killer app is taking this a bit too far, hell the best sales figures the prime series has had thus far is the original at around 2.8 million copies, why Nintendo are pouring money into these guys is beyond me.

@TheFrenchiestFry

What is your point?

Anticipation of a comment doesn't render it invalid.

Sad to hear they aren't working from home. Texas is hit very hard with COVID.

Why am I getting Ion Storm flashbacks?

I love Metroid and want it to be good. Skyrocketing budgets and no planned release in sight make me anxious.

It's gonna be a Breath of the Wild situation, by the time this is close to development completion Nintendo would release it simultaneously for the Switch and the successor which at that point most would just buy it for the successor instead.

@Arkay that's Playstation not Nintendo 😲

@KingBowser86 I hear he's had many years of experience in his field and is very supportive of others.

Am I reading this wrong but 40,000 space for $530,000 Or £406,000 seems very cheap. Especially when that’s the same price as a 2 bed starter home In Cambridge UK.

Building towards a brighter future.

In this case expansion is better than contraction.

Hate to see the budget on this game. Wonder if they can recover the total cost. Betting it has to sell at least 5 million to turn a profit.

Metroid Prime 4 is vaporware for now.

@TheFrenchiestFry Aw S#?t here we go again they are going to mess this place up.

@Spoony_Tech If they sell 5 million copies for 60 USD each, they make 300 million. BotW had the biggest budget of any Nintendo game ever with 120 million and broke even after only 2 million copies, they'll definitely sell more than 2 million copies of Metroid Prime 4.

The year is 2036 and Retro just announced a new recruitment for developers.
New release date for Metroid 4 is the summer of 2039.

Geez, Prime 4 is giving Duke Nukem Forever a run for its money with its delays...
Are you sure it's not going through development hell and will ultimately get cancelled last second?

I assume, given the price tag, that the new building's central conference room resembles the interior of Samus' gunship.

$530,000 is not that much for a new building.

@Jakiboy
The game has only ever been delayed once after it restarted development back in early 2019. No release date has been announced.

Jesus Christ, how hard could it be to develop a game?

@Onkel_Laser Trivially easy. Now, give us something of the same scale and quality as Axiom Verge and Stardew Valley. You alone. Personally. Troll

And maybe you can refrain from commenting until you release it.

Metroid Prime was only made by about 40 people?

@TheFrenchiestFry This game should've had a 20 minute gameplay reveal with a pre-order date and release window by now

@Menardi Maybe just call it sarcasm? Not really insulting any one particular person

I'm flattered you have nothing better to do than monitor my activity on the site though you're too kind

@hypercoyote there we go

@TheFrenchiestFry You're welcome 😂

Whatever the full reasoning behind the aggressive expansion and acquisition of worthy talent, I have no choice but to expect MP4 to be one the greatest undertakings in gaming once completed. Given the time scale this game has been worked on and all that has happened in the meantime, subpar is no longer an option. I hope all of this talent can truly land a very epic game. That is all.

@Lionyone Real estate in Texas is usually pretty cheap. They kind of have a lot of land there.

@Onkel_Laser
I mean, if you want to to a decent 5 hour 8-bit sidescroller, it could probably take 5 developers around 3 months to make such a game.

If you want a sequel to one of the best gaming trilogies ever after a 10+ year hiatus, where the expectation is that the game gets similarly strong reviews and sells much better than prior entries to make up for the increased development costs and revitalize the entire franchise, well, it will take...a decent amount of time, resources, and personnel.

@Menardi You mean rants as in harmless jabs at a gaming community's behaviour that's become common place all over social media to begin with? I don't really give a crap about what people on this site think of me, nor do I feel the need to "lighten up" since people won't care about a single comment in a sea of other ones. My opinion is completely incosequential in altering the enjoyment of things from other people and I'm really not here to change anyone's mind on a particular topic. I really couldn't care less what you think of either me or what I have to say. Just move along because I am a faceless nobody of an individual to you as you are to me.

@AnnoyingFrenzy Would make sense considering how long-standing his career is. Pillar of the community, too.

@KingBowser86 It is clear he'll really cement his place on the team, he'll be a foundation for the rest to grow off of.

@AnnoyingFrenzy there is no doubt he will ensure the rest of the team can weather the storm to come. Disgruntled, impatient gamers, not so much.

This and halo infinite are in development hell

This is exiting! That means that I are willing to expand, maybe even opening a second team
More and bigger games for in the future!

We've been waiting since corruption on the Wii, so we can wait a few more years (I don't expect a release until late 2022). But!!! I expect a HD trilogy in 2021/early 2022 and Prime 4 to be incredible, just like Odyssey and Botw were to Mario and Zelda respectively

Well, I hope this means they are in it for the long haul and we are getting more than one.

@Mgene15
> 343 Industries: Loses 3 of its lead game directors and producers within the last 12 months, among other personel losses
> Retro Studios: Aggressively expands workforce by aquiring development talent from across the industry and ponies up the cash for a big HQ renovation

"mEtrOId pRIme 4 is JuST liKe hAlo InFInitE"

Don’t worry retro, you guys will make that back the first week you release MP4. Likely the first couple days even. 🤣

I look forward to playing Metroid Prime on the Switch 3 Pro! It wouldn't kill Nintendo to put out a HD remaster collection of the original 3.

Man, some of you guys put a negative spin on everything.

Good things will come out of this, Retro will expand meaning Prime 4 will probably take less time and possibly Retro will have enough staff to justify a "B" team where they can work on multiple game at a time.

@KryptoniteKrunch It's great isn't it? Nintendolife posts an article. Maria the cleaner stops working at Retro Studios..."Aaaargh they've started again!!!?!?!?!?! Development hell! This game will never come out! Why Nintendo, why??!?!?!?!??!" "Something something Switch Pro pixels and framerate and milliseconds of lag!!!?!?!?!"

As if Nintendo reads these comments.

Wow, I really hope people buy this game. Metroid has had a history of not selling great. At least compared to other AAA franchises.

@link3710 more than one game in the pipeline at a time? When was the last time Retro even put out a game, period?

@TheFrenchiestFry I have the opposite stance. Games probably shouldn't be revealed at all that early.

Retro could be making the launch title for Switch Pro...

@SpaceKaren yeaaah... They clearly had a cancelled game. But when you cancel a game and you only have one in the pipeline at a time, that's what happens.

I specifically said they're GOING to expand to more, not have had more than one.

Gosh they are taking this game very seriously, great to see

I still want to see what the game looked like when Namco was involved. Unless there were microtransactions up the yazoo, I don't see how it could have been that bad.

I'm glad Nintendo is investing money on Retro Studios. They definitely earned it after handling so well the Metroid Prime and DK franchise. They even helped with Mario Kart 8 (or 7? I don't remember which one).

@KryptoniteKrunch Well said. Not to mention that Retro is likely working on Prime 4, even as we speak. The construction of the new building is on another location. Not in the current HQ of Retro.

They are building for the future. This isn't just about Prime 4, and I'm still expecting that November 2021.

Sooooooo, basically this game is still years out.

It's ok, this game will sell over 100 million copies within its first week (specifically the 57th week of 12055 Human Era)

@Mgene15 Development hell? Spill the dirt son...what do you know? Post and delete it if you want so it goes into my email. I'm curious as to what the problem is...

@Jmjfrank We should we start laying bets on BOTW2 or MP4 coming out first?

@John_Deacon 3923 is more like it

People are forgetting the reason the reason MP4 was revealed in 2017 was because the game was in development at Bandai Namco(I think it was). Then Nintendo looked at what it was and realized it was garbage, and gamers deserved better. So they restarted from scratch. I don't think anythings was kept. So by the metric, the game essentially started development last year and not whenever the last version was.

This whole thing is like if Microsoft decided to sleep on Halo all the way from Halo 2 to now, just now deciding to bring it back. Announce it then sit on it for a few more years

Nintendo are terrible at easy wins, and the lack of urgency to have stuff like this rejuvenate console metroid games is embarrassing.

@Lionyone you are missing the story here
The story is that they are buying a huge complex that is enough to several times they’re size, that means that they are planning to grow the studio

Anyway, this move is most likely doesn’t have anything to do with Metroid

@Retro_Player_77 considering Nintendo will just revise the Switch. All good.

No mention of COVID?
The country is headed towards another lock down. Maybe a remodel is being done so they can social distance in the office better.

@LUIGITORNADO That’s what I figure

@justin233 donkey kong country 4

@COVIDberry Wow, very clever. Comparing a gigantic game developer to a single person. Did you study for that?

It seems that most people actually forgot that development had to be restarted on this game in early 2019.

So actually the game hasn't even been in development for 2 years.

So many people here have gold fish memories.

@HammerKirby uh okay?

Retro devs, Samus is supposed to be agile & fast. The Prime Series is great, the open world aspect is key but please for the love of God change the movement of Samus- she needs to have more agility than a broomstick on a swivel! Other M for all it's linear faults, the versatile combat was on point. SAMUS IS QUICK AND AGILE!

@DrDaisy I agree, Namco very rarely puts out duds and it'd be nice to see some of the dev concepts. I fear that the man calling for the scrapping did so bc the game wasn't a mirror version of... Metroid Prime.

@Arkay It's a joke bc that was their slogan for ps4.

@HammerKirby ahh, never knew. Guess it flew over my head.

Hopefully they can make some meaningful progress on prime 4 prior to moving into their new office.

I appreciate the thorough info here on who else is on the team!

@holygeez03 I don't think they're regretting the reveal. No one can mention MP4 without a whole bunch of buzz. Of course it's mostly negative and snarky stuff ABOUT the reveal and how far away the game is but that doesn't even matter now. News sites know that any little MP4 story is big clicks and ultimately that's more awareness of the game ie more sales when it finally is released one day.

I really really hope this pays off. This dev cycle has been a mess and a half so far.

with all the profissionals of the highest calibre Retro Studios is hiring to work on Metroid Prime 4, GOTY of 2022/2023 and best game of the franchise here i come, i prefer tp wait until Holiday 2022/early 2023 to Metroid Prime 4 be a masterpice like Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Metroid Prime 1, and release early and the game be another Metroid Other M or Metroid Prime Federation Force, Retro Studios take all the time you need to deliver to us the GOTY of 2022/2023 and best game of the franchise, i/we Metroid fans will not except a game that is not a masterpice, please stop joking Metroid Prime 4 is the Cyberpunk 2077 of Nintendo(that not funny).

I think @link3710 has a good point here. It's being seen on the surface as this is just for Metroid Prime 4 but it could indeed be something that allows for even bigger games in the future or even working on more than 1 project easily at once which will only help Retro Studios and Nintendo.

Also, Retro remodeling the studio now doesn't tell me one way or the other Metroid Prime 4 is further away from release now than before this news was published. In fact, because it is one of the few Nintendo first-party titles mostly made in the US (remembering that Retro is based in Austin, Texas, USA) there is a slim possibility that while Nintendo will never admit it (because the company doesn't comment on rumors or speculation) the game is on-time (because all Nintendo of Japan has to do is proofread, approve of and finalize their work into their vision of the finished game). Heck, they just started to hire play testers for builds and that's a move that shouldn't be overlooked or undervalued in the development process at all. Out!

Hire me, that way I can play it before the Super GameCube comes out. I made up Super GameCube (it just sounds cool right?...haha).

Shows confidence if they are upgrading the studio. I was more concerned about moving into something completely new, but this is just good all around. Many new hires and the promise of some modern spaces to work. Good stuff.

As for waiting for the game to be great... yeah, I can do that, and I want it to be great — and take advantage of a potential power increase in whatever Nintendo has cooked up for newer hardware options — but also, can you give me more Metroid of some kind now, please?

There is some ripe fruit to pick on that: Metroid Prime Trilogy remaster, Metroid 2 for Switch... new 2D game...

I'd almost prefer a new Metroid with 2D gameplay with graphics like Ori and other modern metroidvanias at this point. I want both, but the wait...

It has been SEVEN YEARS since the last game they made came out! Or even the last project that we know for sure that they worked on came out!! The fact that they haven't been able to finish anything in all that time makes me extremely skeptical about they're abilities. Well, all we can do is hope that their next game (be it Metroid Prime 4 or something else) is just as good as all of their other games!