Metroid Prime 4 Developer Responds to the Game’s Most Divisive Element

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One of the developers of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond recently explained the reasoning behind a feature that has split fans. Since the game launched earlier this month, opinions have been mixed. While players generally praise the game’s beautiful graphics and environments, the open-world hub area – where Samus drives a vehicle similar to a motorcycle – has been a point of contention. Now, we have insight into why the developers chose to include this open-world element.

A developer who worked on Metroid Prime 4 recently shared in an interview with Famitsu magazine that the game includes open-world elements because of the original design goals. When Retro Studios took over the project in 2019, they were instructed to follow this initial vision. The success of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild also influenced this decision, as fans began requesting a similar open-world experience in a Metroid game.

Over time, instead of adapting to new trends in gaming, Retro Studios continued to build on its original design choices. This ultimately resulted in Metroid Prime 4 feeling less immersive in its open-world aspects, a shortcoming the developers appear to recognize.

The development team noticed a lot of online discussion early in the project, inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with players hoping for an open-world Metroid game. However, they realized that Metroid’s traditional gameplay – expanding the explorable map by gaining new abilities – didn’t quite fit with the ‘go anywhere’ nature of open-world games. To address this, they decided to create a central, freely explorable area as a hub, connecting to other locations. They also wanted to include satisfying bike movement within this hub to provide a relaxing break from the tension of exploration and help control the game’s pacing.

The game ended up taking much longer to complete than we anticipated, and we noticed player expectations for open-world games were shifting. However, we had already restarted development once before – completely rebuilding the game with Retro Studios – so we couldn’t go back and make major changes again. We decided to stick with our original concept. Around that time, shooters and action games were becoming faster-paced, but incorporating those changes would have disrupted the slower, more deliberate pace we wanted for an adventure game. We intentionally avoided those trends. Because of all this, I believe the game feels distinct from what was becoming popular at the time.

This Is Good News for Metroid Prime 5

It’s disappointing that the team working on Metroid Prime 4 struggled to create a game that met player expectations before its release. However, what’s been shared suggests a promising outlook for a potential Metroid Prime 5. The main issue with Metroid Prime 4 seems to be that it was in development for so long that Nintendo felt pressured to release it, even if it wasn’t perfect. If work on a new Metroid Prime game started now, Retro Studios would likely have more flexibility to create a game that blends classic Metroid elements with current, popular game design trends.

Okay, so Nintendo hasn’t officially said anything about Metroid Prime 5, and honestly, I don’t expect to hear anything for a long time. But Retro Studios, the team behind the original Prime games, is now working on the series again, so I’m still holding out hope that we’ll get a sequel eventually. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it happens!

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2025-12-26 22:10