David, writing about a Metroid project that never saw the light of day on Kotaku AU? Must be Wednesday.
YouTube stalwart Did You Know Gaming? has come through with the behind-the-scenes goods yet again, this week illuminating a suite of Metroid games that never saw the light of day.
As spotted by Nintendo Life, it appears that Retro Games, the studio behind the Metroid Prime series, once pitched a Metroid tactics game to Nintendo. The concept was quite similar to that of XCOM. Dubbed Metroid Tactics internally, the game was pitched to Nintendo after the studio had completed work on the Prime trilogy and was looking for its next project. Developer Paul Tozer had been leading the charge on the pitch and, until he spoke about it with DYKG, had never spoken about it publicly before.
According to Tozer, Metroid Tactics would have been prequel to the entire Metroid franchise, marking “the very moment when Samus Aran first separates from the Chozo who raised her from childhood, encounters humanity and becomes a bounty hunter,” Tozer said. “The game also marks humankind’s very first encounter with the Space Pirates and Metroids.
He continues. “Samus must cooperate with an elite team of highly-trained Galactic Federation Troopers and colourful bounty hunters to stop the incursion on several Galactic Federation planets, at various locations on planets such as Norion and Earth and eventually take on the Space Pirates at their outpost on planet Zebes.
“It’s basically XCOM; it was XCOM in the Metroid Universe, except instead of fighting aliens, you’re fighting Space Pirates – who are also aliens but different,” concludes Tozer. Despite Tozer’s belief that the game would have been quite cheap to produce, and that it would have been constructed on the tech that powered the Prime franchise, it was not to be.
Sadly for Tozer, and the rest of us, he says higher-ups at Retro ultimately shot Metroid Tactics down before it had made it too far at all.
As far as anyone is aware, Retro Studios is currently at work on a new game in the Metroid Prime franchise. Announced in 2017, and hit with several delays, we’ve seen hide nor hair of Metroid Prime 4 since that fateful E3 teaser. The last game Retro led development on was Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze in 2014.
What might have been? Make Metroid Tactics, Retro, you cowards. It’s a good idea! I can’t believe you didn’t make it! Have you spent 20 years trying to punish me personally? Because I have suffered enough.
Also finish Metroid Prime 4, dammit. And drop the Prime Trilogy remaster while you’re at it.
Leave a Reply