Thanks to a recent interview on Reece Reilly's Kiwi Talkz podcast, today has brought some rather interesting details around Retro Studios and Nintendo. We've had the humorous tale of how the blowing mechanic was added to Donkey Kong Country Returns, and some interesting insight into the development of Metroid Prime Trilogy. These nuggets have been given by Mike Wikan, who used to work at the studio and played a key role in various major projects.
Another interesting segment, to us, was a discussion around crunch at Retro Studios. It's an important topic in the industry, of course, and it's also no secret that extended hours and unreasonable working conditions have been a prominent issue around various companies.
Wikan notably shuts down stories that Nintendo enforced any unreasonable deadlines on the studio for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and highlighted how the company stepped in when it realised there was a serious issue after completion of the first game. The decision to move forward with Echoes in its eventual form was a change of heart from the parent company, though the 'dark and light' mechanic enabled the team to work smartly and use rooms twice, for example.
After Metroid Prime 1 we rarely crunched, we had a change of leadership between 1 and 2...
We had some crunch (in 2) but it wasn't the nine month death march that we had at the end of Prime 1. That was the worst.
I had two times where I was there 48 hours straight with one hour of sleep, and then a couple of 36 hour days, for the last nine months we were there pretty much 24/7...
At the end of that time everyone was ready to quit, we were like "we're done". I had two job offers from two different companies, and to their credit Nintendo realised what was going on and took over the company, bought it out. They put Michael Kelbaugh in charge. He's a sweetheart, real good, he was head of Nintendo's QA department. He said "guys, give me a few weeks to turn it around. And he did".
... He restored faith in leadership and in the company. I loved working for Nintendo.
Michael Kelbaugh is still President and CEO of Retro Studios, and had worked at Nintendo for over 14 years at the time of his appointment. Later in the interview Wikan briefly touched on his plans to play Metroid Prime 4, the long delayed project that was initially being made elsewhere before Nintendo reversed course and gave it to Retro Studios. He has confidence that the current team will deliver.
And Metroid 4 will be great. A lot of the core designers on the team are guys who were there when I was. They understand, they understand what a Metroid game is.
Nintendo has been known to delay some projects to avoid overworking teams, citing a need to care for its employees when it originally pushed back Animal Crossing: New Horizons, as one example. Metroid Prime 4, of course, has no meaningful release window at this time, so the project's reboot is clearly being given plenty of time.
Let us know what you think of Wikan's comments, and whether you're still full of bubbly optimism for Metroid Prime 4.
[source youtube.com]
Comments (48)
I think that's quite nice, buyouts tend to be associated with meddling and damage to the company atmosphere.
But the fact the Retro buyout lead to a more balanced work culture is really good.
It just goes to show, fans demanding this and that and a flurry of titles come across as not appreciating there are folk working behind it all...with families and other things to do.
Prime 4 and Bayo 3 were announced way too early. The day we see a Direct re-announcing them with actual gameplay will be glorious.
If the reason for delays is that people are having a life, then by all means keep delaying it.
I don't crunch at work, and I don't expect anyone to do it
Fans can be so toxic. Delays are necessary to help the final product be even better.
For all of Nintendo's problems, overworking employees is not one of them, and I've never gotten the impression otherwise. This confirms my beliefs, which is nice.
The fact that a lot of people working at Retro now are veterans who got a break from the Prime series after a while is encouraging. A few articles regarding new hirings indicate they've managed to bring some good talent on board as well, but my judgement will be reserved until they're confident enough to show their hand. Hopefully Dread is an indication of the direction they're taking for the overall series.
For now, I'll just hope for a Prime Trilogy port some time before MP4 comes out, since the Joy-Cons can emulate the Wii remote's movements.
Nice to hear a buyout lead to a complete culture change and not just more bodies to add to the crunch. It shows because all the games Retro touch show in the final product.
Retro hasn't missed the mark yet even though I didn't care for Prime 2 & 3 personally. It's obvious it's a team with an abundance of talent and good ideas and creativity. Given enough time and resources their next projects can only end up great, I feel.
I don't doubt the gameplay will be top notch, mostly curious where the story will go after Prime 3. Particularly to merit the subtitle "Prime" beyond being first-person.
Retro's lack of output in the last decade suddenly makes sense lol
Matt McMuscles has a great episode of Wha' Happun? about Prime 1. Really informative. Worth watching alongside with 'The Guy Game' episode to learn about the state Retro Studios were in at the time
Metroid dread has bought Prime 4 a bunch more time as far as fan impatience goes.
I can wait.
No need to crunch.
I have Dread LE pre-ordered and that will keep me happy, as well as a lot of other great indie Metroid style games to keep me busy.
Now all I need is Team Cherry to release Silksong and take away some of the pain while I wait.
@Broosh metroid wasn't announced to early and would have released by now if they didn't completely scrap it and start over from scratch. but bayo 3 really was to early.
Good to hear a story of a big publisher working with a studio to decrease crunch over time, not increase it.
@martynstuff
easily one of my favorite YouTube series. He even touched on it with one of his earlier videos wha happun guy game.
I feel soooooo bad that some people choose to take a job where they have to work long hours sitting at a desk.
@Clarice Out of curiosity, what didn't you care for in Prime 2 and 3? I recently replayed all of them and if I had to rank them I'd go 2, 1, 3, but would still say 3 is an absolute blast. Also, shoutouts to DKCR and DKCTF for being two of my absolute favorite 2D platformers.
Just like cereal, too much crunch and you end with a mouth full of broken teeth and bleeding gums.
To paraphrase the great artiste Shelígro Mayomissimo, “A delayed game is hopefully eventually good… maybe. But an undelayed game will crush your employees’ spirits and result in a mass exodus from the company, and also probably be a broken, unplayable mess”.
Something like that.
Echoes > Prime > Corruption. That said all 3 are absolute masterpieces.
This is harder then it sounds, turning around a culture like that.
Japan doesn't have a lot of 'top down" social pressure outside the home. Your boss is generally a great person, asking you to make sure you don't overwork, offering you days off when hype games come out or to go see a concert. Most companies bend over backwards to ensure their people are taken care of.
It's you co-workers who make work a dystopian nightmare. I remember a team I was working on calling me to ask why I wasn't in ... to which I explained, ya know, it's holiday and the office was closed? As soon as I said it I knew I f'ed up. Turns out it was pretty much a given with that office that you show up on holidays and BREAK IN to the office to keep working. I just moved from white guy who is probably a lazy disrespectful idiot to guy everyone was right about from the start. I put in a request to move offices a few days latter (which my boss was totally awesome and understanding about) given people wouldn't even reply when I said "Hi" in the office any more.
If the boss stays to work overtime, you stay until they leave. Again, this has nothing to do with the boss (who generally is working in a isolated area and wouldn't see you leave regardless) and everything to do with how being the one guy who stands up and says "you know, this culture of one-upping each other as to who is more loyal and willing to sacrifice more for the company is toxic, I was done 5 hours again and I'm leaving" is professional AND social suicide.
So this isn't a matter of just replacing a few key people, it's applying constant pressure and follow up to pull people out of century old cultural norms.
Crunch sucks. I’m happy to wait.
Work to live, don’t live to work. Makes sense to me.
You mean they didn't have to be sued or have a lengthy article written about it? That's a first
i have faith on Retro Studios they gonna make Metroid Prime 4 a masterpiece like Metroid Prime 1.
@greehnery I know they said it's Prime 4, but it's also possible that they drop that subtitle and just make it a new Metroid story in the same style as MP Trilogy.
This gives me alot more confidence in Retro Studios, we haven't seen something from them in so long that I was starting to doubt whether they were still capable of making amazing games like they did back then.
Metroid Prime is my favorite game of all time, but the actual story behind that game seems like a nightmare to have been a part of. The fact they put out an all time great game despite everything is certainly commendable, but I'm really glad they never repeated anything like that.
That being said, I'm so curious on everything that's gone on at Retro since Tropical Freeze. I need to know all their plans before they were given Prime 4.
I'm glad that Nintendo turned the culture around at Retro Studios, and hopefully they ended up enjoying their time more developing and assisting with the rest of the Prime Series. They should feel great making great games.
@greehnery It's time to move on thinking that being called "Metroid Prime" means that the game needs to have a narrative focus on Metroid Prime, Dark Samus and/or Phazon. Metroid Prime Hunters has been around for over 15 years. It didn't focus on any of that. Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a game now out for over 5 years, has progressed the story beyond Prime 3 already and Phazon was put in the rear view mirror. There's no reason to expect Prime 4 to involve Phazon, Metroid Prime and/or Dark Samus beyond a brief reference, as was done in Federation Force. Prime 4 should be continuing the story from Federation Force, its prequel, and I'm excited to see where Retro goes from there.
It likely sacrificed the new IP in the process.
May as well be Prime Studios and announce Prime 5 right now before the community starts thinking it's dead again.
@damien33ad Metroid-what?
@Arkay Pretty much. I enjoyed a good chunk of Corruption but the overall pacing is off. It's one of those genuinely great games plagued by "I wish I could skip that part..." moments.
This interview was fantastic. I always wondered how everything came together during the production of P1. To hear about Retro's journey, changes, shifts in how they work as a team. Imagine 20+ years later, they would be brought back to create a new chapter, in the series they helped evolve. However long it takes for Prime 4, it will be worth it.
I'm more curious what on Earth they've been working on since the original DKC:TF???
Mike Wikan reckons Prime 4 "will be great"
When though . . . when. . . .
I really enjoy seeing viewpoints like these. I have recently gotten into the mindset that a more balanced work/life mantra contributes to your life in so many positive ways. It is nice to see others that agree with me about things like this.
@HeadPirate Very much agreed. I currently am stuck with a similar scenario, so I am glad to see I am not the only one who has dealt with something like this before.
I really don't understand how "crunch" happens. You have a project, you give your team a deadline to complete said project. If it isn't done by then, delay the project until you have a serviceable product. The main problem is companies who announce a games years before it's ready for release ( look at Cyberpunk). No game should be announced until it is maximum 6 months near completion, period. Until that changes, I don't see crunch ending anytime soon.
@Chamver Unfortunately, with a lot of people, if they don't get news then they get very upset. It has gotten better after the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco, but a lot of people will be very upset if they don't get any news, and will get upset at any delays, even if the delay is for the good of both the game and the developers.
@Chamver unfortunately I can totally see how crunch exists. If they budget a team to work for 10 months but it takes 20 months, that project now cost twice as much for the same expected revenue.
Now the company thinks, if they can get developers to do 20 months work in 10 months with unpaid overtime the project will still be profitable. It sucks.
It's still rather miraculous that Prime 1 came out in the shape it did. And gladly so since we now have a very well respected 1st party dev for Nintendo.
@edgedino games don't get scrapped when they are close to completion. Whatever that other Metroid Prime 4 was, it was also likely in a very early stage of development at the time that reveal announcement happened
@Broosh It's crazy to think there have been numerous games announced and released a year after those games were...MP4 I understand as it was completely scrapped and reworked entirely but Bayo 3....unless they are waiting to drop it on more powerful hardware I have no idea what happened there 🤔
I have a slight feeling it won't be called "Prime 4", but "Prime Something Else". I think the average dev cycle nowadays is, what 4 to 5 years? 2 1/2 have already passed so I'm hoping to see SOMETHING either at year's end or early next year.
@AnnoyingFrenzy thanks for asking.
I didn't care for Prime 2 because of the drab atmosphere. The dark world especially sucked all the fun out, it felt depressing for me to move around in and I quit. The gameplay was still great, although I felt some of the bosses were too challenging to be fun anymore.
Prime 3 turned me off because of the 'federation' storyline. I liked some of the motion controls but some felt forced and detracting from the gameplay. Again the gameplay was still great but the storyline especially with all the odd characters made it less of a Metroid game - it completely lost the sense of suspenseful isolation I seek in a Metroid game.
@Yodalovesu doubtful since nintendo doesn't like to announce stuff that was just started plus it was well known it was over half done.
@Yodalovesu also nintendo have indeed cancelled games near completion on multiple occasions.
I really like this A LOT good on Nintendo wish the rest of the industry would follow suite
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