The Development of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond — Interview

[Otter]

firebush03 said:

My biggest takeaways:

(i) Either Retro is pushing the blame onto Bandai Namco for the mixed quality of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, or the game truly was a project intended to salvage the work Bandai Namco left behind.

(ii) The staff behind Metroid Prime 4: Beyond weren’t happy with the finished project (and in particular weren’t hugely keen on the implementation of open world design sprinkled throughout the game), but seem quite pleased with graphical performance.

(iii) Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was developed by a new team at Retro, entirely distinct from that of the original trilogy. This team was built from the ground up during development.

…In summary: MP4B is exactly what I thought it was— a project with a troubled development but, having already been promised to fans (and having already poured several years of funding and dev resources into the project), Nintendo didn’t want to back down. The end product is a game under other circumstances would have never seen release in its current state. That said, however, with this new MP team formed at Retro, it seems the future may be bright: If there is a MP5 coming from this same studio, I suspect there will be a major boost in quality.

Hmm, this feels like a bit of extreme to draw from the things they stated in the actual interview. Critically speaking especially Nintendo releases lower scoring games and I think retrospective change on design aspects is not uncommon. More than anything it feels like a game made by a team still developing and thus it reflects a lack of confidence in knowing exactly what they needed it to be.