If you've been wondering what the developer MercurySteam is up to now that Metroid Dread is available on the Nintendo Switch, it appears it's already got a brand-new game in the works.
The Spanish-based studio is teaming up with Digital Bros and its publishing division 505 Games for a new title codenamed "Project Iron". It's described as a brand new third-person action RPG set within a dark fantasy world.
The title will receive a "multiplatform global release" and the project's initial development investment amounts to €27 million. Along with this, "the intellectual property of the game is co-owned by Digital Bros. and MercurySteam through the joint-venture MSE & DB S.L. set up under the Spanish Law".
Here's what the co-CEOs of Digital Bros had to say about this announcement:
“We are thrilled to work with the team at MercurySteam, a proven studio that over the years has created numerous phenomenal IPs – including the recent hit release Metroid Dread in partnership with Nintendo. With MercurySteam’s creative vision and talent and 505 Games extensive experience, gamers can expect a high-quality, captivating and engaging videogame.”
In recent times, MercurySteam has also released a series of patches for Metroid Dread on the Nintendo Switch.
Would you be interested in seeing MercurySteam's future projects like this one on the Switch? Interested to know more about "Project Iron"? Leave a comment down below.
[source mercurysteam.com, via twitter.com]
Comments 81
Wait a minute, this isn't Metroid Dread 2: The Lost Levels, this is a bunch of BULL****!
Oh great! Another dark fantasy RPG!
Sounds… original. Although as good as Dread is, MercurySteam aren’t exactly known for their originality.
@NWC You realize they'd have already gotten your money right? Gamestop sold stock to you, stock which was bought from Nintendo. Your return has quite literally zero impact on Mercury.
@Reiflo Gotta stand up for one's own principles, though. And it will impact them, since this person and others will choose to personally boycott this garbage studio.
@BloodNinja I can understand boycotting future products, but having already purchased the game I would think the least you could do is finish playing and appreciating the full amount of work the devs poured into the game.
After years of blood and sweat I somehow doubt the people who worked so hard would want everyone to refund it or stop playing permanently.
Treat your employees like people first
@NWC Very weird stance seeing as how it won't affect anyone involved at all. Whatever makes you feel like a better human bean though I suppose.
I hope they don’t end up like Factor 5/ OG Rare/ Silicone Knights, as in a dev that should have stuck with Nintendo. Maybe a Retro Studios situation could, where Nintendo’s management could better the studio?
Either way, I’m sure/hope they’ll be back for the next 2D Metroid game.
In the meantime, we’ll see whatever this “Project Iron” is, and whether it’ll come to the Switch.
@locky-mavo It's a 3D action RPG. We're minimum 2 years out from release, probably longer. I bet it will be on Switch 2 in 2024-2026.
Wait? I missed something? About mercury steam employees?
Yeah I wish them luck, 505 is a joke.
Uh oh, Nintendo better acquire Mercurysteam quick or else it might never happen later down the road
I’m still in the mindset of being pro Mercury Steam. A person being left off the credits for not being on the project long enough is not fuss worthy. A studio working long hours is how ambitious projects get finished. It shouldn’t be the standard, but I think to a degree it’s an inevitability.
Had there been this level of transparency back in the day how would we feel about Metroid Prime and Retro Studios? They had to grind for a year straight to give birth to that beauty. The Japanese developers LIVED in the office for the final months of development for Super Metroid, yet we play those games with a clear conscience.
Standards could and probably should change, but fawning over Mercury Steam’s tepid flaws and making the success of an amazing game suffer for it is just ridiculous to me.
@The-Chosen-one some of the developers who were only on the project for a limited time wasn’t in the end credits, and they complained about it online. The terms was in the policy from the start though, but entitled young gamerz on the internet who don’t know how contracts and policy’s work thought it was the worst thing since the Holocaust.
MercurySteam has been bought last year for 40% by Nordisk. I expect this to be a new game for any of the franchises Nordisk owns.
Codename S.T.E.A.M. 2
@SirKif
Oooh whas it about that lol!
Man i work on big IT projects for years. The company gets the credits and i get paid 😂
@SirKif if their work is in the game, their name should be in the credits.
@HotGoomba
Read closely
third person
It's Other M 2: Revenge of the Sith!
@Reiflo I honestly hated the game when I borrowed it, so that sentiment is wasted on me.
@SirKif
It's much easier for people to act holier-than-thou than do any research it seems.
Good luck to them. After making the 3rd best Metroid game of all time, they deserve it.
@DiggleDog Not if they signed a contract with full knowledge they won’t get credited if they only did the equivalent of “5 min of work” when there is an established contribution minimum.
If they didn’t care back then, because like most people: They care more about getting paid then being a footnote in a wall of text then they shouldn’t suddenly care now unless they wanted to cash in on the “game company is evil woe is me” trend.
Ahh, yes, we definitely need more dark fantasy action RPGs
Is it not like massively over the line to make light of the Holocaust of all things in an attempt to slate somebody for exercising their right as a consumer? I hate how basic empathy is being made out to be a weakness. Wonder where it’s all stemming from.
Sequel to code named S.T.E.A.M.
@nessisonett yes but how much did the holla cost?
On topic: Not interested in YET another dark fantasy rpg but I do wish Mercury good luck with their current and future projects!
The game is good (not great but really good) period.
For those complaining and trying to boycott the game I did buy 3 copies,
The first one was the standard edition that did not arrive on launch day, since my copy didn't show up I went into the eShop and got it digitally (that's copy #2) and a few days ago I find the special edition at almost retail price (that's copy#3)
So yeah, keep doing what you are doing with your double morale since I'm sure most of you worship games that were/have being made under the same /if not worst conditions. I'll happily buy more copies of my favorite games 🙂
@Meteoroid Being unoriginal isn't always a bad thing, it's just a meh thing. I'm personally not looking forward it because the dark fantasy setting is generic to me.
@Lord I wish! That game was fantastic I don't care what anybody says!
@EriXz Nope, don't worship games that have been under worse conditions. Stopped supporting studios who were terrible and never bought another game from them since. At the end of the day I can forgo any franchise nomatter how much I enjoyed it. And I feel pretty darn good with myself.
@Meteoroid I'm not even bashing them. Being truly original is hard; It's even harder when you are trying to make AAA and not want it to fail. That's why I said being unoriginal isn't always a bad thing. You can be unoriginal yet still make something good. Just look at Marvel movies.
Hopefully it's not another dark medieval European setting. I would love to explore something different vs the default setting alot of studios go for.
@Vexx234 Shocking how little originality there is in gaming these days. Because of the high cost of making them, everyone is scared to do something a little different.
Mercury Steam should be allowed to remake Super Metroid. Using the same style as Metroid Dread. I don't think Super Metroid NEEDS a remake per se. It'd just be really cool to have one. Cos it's the one that has yet to be remade. They could do a zero mission and have half the game be a remake of the original game, and the 2nd half be an entirely brand new game. That surprise was so great with Zero Mission. Imagine defeating mother brain and escaping the planet, only to find that you've got a whole half of the game left to beat. How cool would that be?
A remake of super metroid would never replace the original. The original would still exist, and would still be great to play. The remake would just sit there as a compliment to the original, to add to it, to give us more new metroid gameplay
Because Mercury steam made literally the best metroidvania ever, with Dread. So I trust them completely to be the only guys who could satisfactorily remake super metroid which until Dread's release was still the best metroidvania ever. Mercury Steam are the only ones who've managed to top it. So why not let them remake it?
I'm not sure ME themselves can make a good game, their own output has been very middling. But let's see how it goes I guess
Eh. I’m so tired of grimdark fantasy in media at this point, it’s completely overdone.
@RobotReptile welcome to the entertainment biz.
This very common for example look up the WGA and 33%. Maybe this give more insight.
Besides receiving Credit or not can also be contractual agreement.
Still today we haven’t seen the coffee runner on any movie credits.
@Reiflo what did @NWC write?
I can’t find the post! Or did I miss something?
I wish them all the best. I still have Dread in my back log. For whatever reason the game industry is still getting away with poor working conditions aka startup hours as I call it.
@SirKif wow, what a hot take.
@Gwynbleidd payday 2 debacle and the walking dead debacle, granted most games they publish are just published, they had no hand in making it or other decisions.
With payday they really messed up. Made the game pay to play, as in a 60 dollar game like every other game. They promised it will never have In App Purchases (IAP from now on). They stopped supporting it in favor of Payday 3 after not even fixing many bugs in payday 2. 505/starbreeze goes almost bankrupt due to the mess called Overkills the walking dead game. Then to save to company they release a ton of IAP for payday 2. Breaking their promise.
Here is a snippet from forbes:
“Prior to the game's launch in 2013, developer Overkill stated that micro-transactions would not be part of the game. At the time, producer Almir Listo admonished doubters, writing: "We've made it clear that Payday 2 will have no microtransactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!)"
This was followed up a month later by (now former) lead designer David Goldfarb reassuring gamers that Payday 2 would not get micro-transactions in the future.
"No," he told GameSpot at the time. "No. God, I hope not. Never. No."
But times change, and during the 10-day special "CrimeFest" event Overkill revealed the new Black Market update. This update introduces "safes" to end-of-match rewards and a new currency "drills" with which to open them. Drills cost money, and once you've used the drill on a safe you get a random weapon skin.
One really bad twist here is that not only do safes replace other free rewards, they sometimes unlock skins for weapons you have to then purchase as DLC.”
Does this mean there's no chance of DLC for Dread?
@Scrubicius NWC basically said "they treat their employees bad, thank goodness I returned Metroid Dread before buying it!" when they didn't realize that MercurySteam and Nintendo still got their money, they just got money from GameStop.
Speaking of which, @NWC, you do realize you can just get a used copy of Dread and not give MercurySteam any money, right?
Calling it now. Project Iron's real name is Iron.
I mean if you're going into a game looking for reasons to dislike it, then that's on you.
Iron Sword Remake CONFIRMED!!!
@Vexx234 your sarcastic generalization, although valid, is bland and uninspires me to continue work with your needs despite its worth.
@arrmixer Did you read the source? There was hardly poor working conditions. They were part-timers on another project that asked to be transferred over to Dread in the final stretch and didn’t receive credit (as per their contract), and didn’t feel as prioritized as the full-time staff — and why would they be. There was no “crunch” or poor working conditions.
@Arawn93 You sure are assuming a lot
@DiggleDog Who defines “work” and “in the game”? The contracts they signed stated those terms plainly. Nobody is even making a case that their work should‘be counted as far as MercurySteam’s definition, just that it isn’t fair.
In movies what “work” counts is defined by labor unions. There is no such thing in games and the whole thing is arbitrary. That this got any heat at all is because of media outrage clickbait practices.
@nimnio Perhaps most of the commenters here are teenagers that have never worked before so they are not used to being under a contract.
@Spiders I was referring to the game industry as a whole not specifically to the Mercury incident. But I get your point.
@GoshJosh good for you, and I support that attitude but I can't help but think that for every studio with samey kinda practices that we know there are a few that we don't so I'm stand by my remark, I'm sure there are games in your collection that more than likely were made under not so good conditions
@NeonPizza Yep, we are in full agreement, there!
@RobotReptile I mostly agree with you and think people miss a lot of these points. But, I think people see those other games as being grinded out to near perfection by the staff not a greedy cooperation. I do think there's a difference between a CEO or CFO saying get this out in six months or you don't get paid because I'll look bad, and one that say get this out in six months and those working on it overwork because they don't want to look bad. Also people shouldn't complain to much when they get things like Cyberpunk, but also complain when things are delayed, but also complain when staff are overworked.
In the end these are businesses that have to put food on the table for everyone. I imagine if they had delayed Cyberpunk they would have had to start firing people. Though, all of these issues could be fixed with better project managers who know how to set development cost and times.
@RobotReptile
It sounds like you're saying 'that's just the way it is', and that's not good enough.
Fast-paced and stress-inducing work is one thing, but it sounds like there was a very toxic atmosphere at the company and bad mismanagement - they punished workers for not performing well enough by shifting them to other departments and cutting their salaries, micromanaged, punished people for speaking out against issues, ignored the COVID situation when fear and panic was at an all time high and didn't do enough to protect their workers.
I understand that you enjoy the game and don't want to think about these things. Most of us support bad businesses in some way or another (if you eat chocolate, for example, the chances are that you're supporting some real evil). It's weird, though, to just say '***** happens' and make it out to be acceptable. Be 'pro' the game that some very talented people contributed to, don't be 'pro' the ***** business, because it sounds like they did a terrible job from a management perspective.
@Fiskern uh…no I’m not. The people crying about it to begin with admitted it was in the contract when they signed. The “debate” ends here at this point. Why do you think they can’t do any legal action, but cry about it on social media?
They signed it perfectly voluntarily and back then didn’t see the footnote in the credits as big as a deal as they are making it out to be now because they cared more about the paycheck for the gig.
Obvious taking advantage of “game corporation is evil” trend to seek sympathy is obvious.
I wish devs would work on some decent cyberpunk or steampunk titles. We’re over saturated with dark fantasy.
@DiggleDog If I write one line of code for a game, I should get paid for at least that.
But that shouldn’t justify me being credited next to everyone else who worked on the other 99%.
It’s a courtesy, not an obligation.
Unless it's based on Berserk, I don't care lol.
Guess this means we probably won't see any DLC or modern metroidvania features, like a randomizer mode. Time to wait for the modding community to figure that out!
@locky-mavo Factor 5 went under not because they left Nintendo (Lair had its QoL issues yes, but overall was a good game, especially after being patched), but because after Lair, they had a cancelled project (not their decision) that, because it was cancelled, destroyed their bottom line. If you want to say leaving Nintendo created that scenario, that's fine. Maybe Nintendo didn't like the pitch of Lair while Sony did since they published it. There were also issues with people not getting paid, though I think that was directly related to their finances in the end. If that cancelled game made it to store shelves, I think they would've been okay. There's a video on Youtube about their collapse somewhere, I'm fairly certain that's what happened.
What do you mean by OG Rare? They were bought by Microsoft.
@Kilroy
The point I was making was those three companies were better off when they worked with Nintendo. Two of them are no longer around for their own reasons, which I’m quite aware of “Wha Happun”. And one is arguably a shell of its former self, or at the very least, it ain’t the company that worked with Nintendo.
@HotGoomba True but at the time i bought it new and when i found out how bad the game was and what the company did i took the game back and got my money back
@Reiflo Maybe but i took a stand something some people are to afraid to do and i learned a lesson not to buy from them again and really it's all good i got my money back and so really a win win i guess for both so i won in the end lol
@UglyCasanova What's more weird is your comment thanks
@BloodNinja Agreed their company is garbage and any company that treats their workers that bad i refuse to buy from
@Ogbert Shame as i disagree the game was not a good game and the company is nasty to their workers..Good for you that you support that kind of work place
@Scrubicius I deleted it as to many got offended over my comment over a bad game. Im to old for that mess
@NWC Hey, don't give in. Let people be offended. You are entitled not to like something. I certainly don't praise everything Nintendo through out.
Also good on you for sticking with you principles. Seem most are offended because Meteoroid is their favorite game and don't want any negative around it. Seen many times with other gamers and bad studios.
I liked the look of 'Raiders of the broken planet', which, I think started out as a Metroid pitch. Unfortunately it became 'Spacelords' before coming to any of my platforms of choice, and turned freemium, which is something that killed it for me. That said, the characters, environments, everything looked really well made. If they sold the game properly, on Switch, I'd buy it.
@Funneefox same honestly
@NWC oh okay! I agree but a opinion doesn’t turn into a fact
I thought it was the misunderstanding in the public how people receive credit in the media world.
I wouldn't mind a good third person action RPG set in a dark fantasy world as long as it's not another Souls clone.
Nobody is mentioning Castlevania, even though it greatly fits that description. Hmm.
I'm interested in what they're doing, and if it's coming to Switch, then better. I hope it does... this company would make perfect partners with Nintendo.
@Scrubicius Oh but it is a fact the game is a bad egg.. thanks lol
@Fangleman32 Thanks man.. Being the age i am i just don't really care what a few people who cry think...Been gaming way longer than most on this site. If a game is a bad egg i tell it how it is and it's not just the game it's the company mercurysteam they treated their workers like trash and some fanboys praise their company anyways.. I guess they love to see people suffer
@kalosn lol
@NWC or fact you have bad taste.
You know it is okay have your own opinion, no need to proselytize it.
That’s the issue we have with everything today. “Looking at the states” 😬
@NWC again I like to know how Mercury Stream treated their employees (not workers) like trash.
Or are maybe mistaking Mercury Stream with Activision?
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