Metroid Prime's Former Lead Designer Gets Harassed After Doubting Trilogy Will Come To Switch


It's been a long wait for a brand-new Metroid game. Though 2017 gave us a remake with 3DS game Metroid: Samus Returns, fans have been eagerly awaiting news on the delayed Metroid Prime 4, having restarted development two years ago.

In that time, we've seen repeated rumours that the Metroid Prime Trilogy - comprised of Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - is being ported for Switch, and reports have long indicated that Nintendo are simply waiting for an opportune moment. However, one former Retro Studios developer doesn't believe that's likely.

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Metroid Prime's Former Lead Designer Gets Harassed After Doubting Trilogy Will Come To Switch

Speaking on Facebook, Metroid Prime's lead designer Michael Wilkan doesn't believe it's likely, stating: "The biggest issue is that Retro Studios no longer has functional editor tools to work with the Prime code base, so everything has to be "brute force" hard coded. Rebuilding the hundreds of interaction sets in [Metroid Prime 3] alone, not to mention re-tuning the game play to take in the slower engagement pacing of conventional controls, would probably take a year with a 4-5 person team, full-time, by itself."

Discussing this further, he later replied: "I am pretty skeptical it will happen. It was straightforward to update [Metroid Prime 1] and [Metroid Prime 2] to motion controls, but converting [Metroid Prime 3] to normal controls would be a herculean effort, as it is scripted very specifically using volumetric triggers to detect the motion in precise manners to do specific switches, and the bosses are tuned to take into account the ease of gestural aiming."

Sadly, Wilkan's since been targeted by upset fans for these comments. As reported by Metroid fan website Shinesparkers in a now deleted tweet, they advised "We have been informed that the developer mentioned has been targeted with abusive messages directed at his personal account on social media. The Metroid community is better than this, please be kind."

It's worth noting that Wilkan - who hasn't worked for Retro Studios since 2011 - never rules out a Trilogy Switch port, merely stating he believes it's unlikely to occur. Either way, this is a completely unacceptable response to his comments and whatever your views are, his former position makes Wilkan worth listening to.

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