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Dulfite on 21 February 2022
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Illusion said:
Kakadu18 said:

Do you think studios only hire at the start of a game's development? No, they constantly hire throughout development. Monolith Soft more than doubled their headcount during the development of Xenoblade Chronicles 3,which btw has been in development for a longer time than Metroid Prime 4 is now.

They restarted three years ago. There is zero evidence that they restarted again. Nintendo only shows their games when they're ready and close to launch with only Zelda being an exception. The game being three years into development doesn't mean they are obligated to show gameplay and nothing about these hirings suggests that the development is having issues.

The very existence of this banner in public on it's own should have quenched any and all of these feelings that the project is in jeopardy. They will not show a trailer if the game is still 3 years off. They might rereveal the game this year if it's releasing next year though.

I don't get why you're worried nor why you think we should have gotten gameplay by now.

If we were talking about a studio that has a proven recent track-record like Monolith then I would not be as worried about a 3 year drought with no news about their most highly anticipated project.  In the last 10 years, the only thing that Retro has managed to produce is a 2D Donkey Kong sidescroller and that is compared to their previous 10 years where the company produced the Metroid Prime trilogy as well as a DK game on the Wii.  I think that it is very likely that Retro has had numerous setbacks in the last decade and that is not the same studio that it was in the 2000's.

Keep in mind that Monolith is a company that has numerous projects on the go with multiple studios.  As far as I know, the only thing that Retro is working on right now is Prime 4.  They hired a couple top engineers a few weeks ago and now with this new posting it is pretty clear that these hires are for the Prime 4 project.  I mean, it's really good news that that project is still being worked on and is obviously being given significant attention.  That said, large-scale hiring means either means expansion of the studio or replacement of lost talent which could be a symptom of issues on the project.  I admit that I don't know which one of these it is, I am hoping for the former but I am bracing myself for the latter.  I have been following Retro very closely since 2015 and while I have by no means given up on them, I have learned to guard my expectations a bit.  I just don't want people to get their hopes up too high with speculation.

1) Pretty sure Monolith Soft is bigger than Retro, so you can't really compare their production output fairly.

2) It has been reported for years now that Retro had another game in the works that was cancelled mid development. Based on their output, it's safe to say this was a AAA game and not something AA like 2d DK. We could still end up seeing this at some point down the line or not.

3) This is just a hunch, but I'd guess they've been working on some other things too, smaller budget, that we could see shortly after MP4.

4) It's also possible Nintendo wants MP4 to be the visual peak for Switch, making it take longer, but again it's only been developed by them for 3 years and most AAA games take 4-6 years to make. What Bamco did before them was entirely scratched and thrown away.

5) Employees come and go in any industry. Hires aren't necessarily for new positions: could be people getting a better offer, retiring, swapping careers, having kids, wanting to relocate, etc.