Former DICE art director joins Retro Studios

[Shikamo]

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Former DICE art director Jhony Ljungstedt has joined Retro Studios.

Having previously worked as art director on Battlefield 3, Battlefield 5, Medal of Honor 2010, and Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, Ljungstedt has now moved to join Retro Studios. Though it's unconfirmed what projects Ljungstedt is attached to, all signs point to Metroid Prime 4.

Ljungstedt joins other high profile hires, including former Halo lead character artist Kyle Helfey, and - after a two-year stint elsewhere - Stephen Dupree, the lead designer of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, has also returned to the Austin-based studio.

Metroid Prime 4, which was announced via a logo way back during Nintendo's E3 presentation in June 2017, was restarted from scratch this time last year, significantly delaying its release. Nintendo also switched development teams, appointing the original Metroid Prime trilogy developer Retro Studios to take over, led by the trilogy's producer Kensuke Tanabe.

Nintendo exec Shinya Takahashi said at the time that the company had taken the rare decision to restart the game as it had "not reached the standard we seek in a sequel to the Metroid Prime series".

"The current development status is very challenged, and we had to make a difficult decision as a development team," Takahashi said when the decision was taken to reboot development. "We have decided to re-examine the development structure itself and change it."

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