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Unseen 64: Metroid Series Development Insights (Prime Hunters, Metroid Dread)

Glowsquid

Member
Unseen 64's Tamaki just released a video on Metroid Prime Hunters development. It also has new information on the elusive Metroid Dread!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFpLm3Dg7Yg

Tidibts:

-Metroid Prime Hunters was supposed to have a fully-featured singe player campaign, but time and budget constraints forced them to scrap their original vision and focus on multiplayer.
-The final game's SP campaign was based on the multiplayer design and according to one source, "made at the last minute".
-NST was initially considered to assist with Metroid Dread, but it didn't go further than that after Hunters was released.
-Metroid Dread was prototyped and shown to other Nintendo development teams, including NST.
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
-At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".

... and more. Great video!
 
-Metroid Dread was prototyped and shown to other Nintendo development teams, including NST.
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
-At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".

Nintendo doesn't give what Metroid fans want. WTF is this.
 

BY2K

Membero Americo
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
-At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".

Damn it.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
-Metroid Prime Hunters was supposed to have a fully-featured singe player campaign, but time and budget constraints forced them to scrap their original vision and focus on multiplayer.

So that's why Metroid Prime Hunters single player mode was shit.
 
Damn, man. So Dread was exactly what everyone has always wanted and they just didn't do it. And in the time since then they've made Other M and Federation Force instead.
 

Sophia

Member
-Metroid Dread was prototyped and shown to other Nintendo development teams, including NST.
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
-At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".

Oh jeez, this isn't going to go over well if it's true. It's exactly what a lot of people wanted.
 
Interesting. So NST made Prime Hunters was focused on Multiplayer because NST found it too difficult to make an interesting single player campaign. That's really a bummer, especially since they had two Metroid Prime games to look at for influence.
 

.la1n

Member
-Metroid Dread was prototyped and shown to other Nintendo development teams, including NST.
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
-At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
 
They canceled it because it was too good, guys. They hate Metroid so much!

This. Why do people automatically assume some brilliant and fully realized game was cancelled? Maybe there were not enough ideas or solid enough inspiration to make Dread actually exist?
 
Seems nuts that Nintendo hasn't made a 2D Metroid in over a decade while 2D Metroidvanias are exploding in the indie scene.
 

wrowa

Member
I don't have time to watch this video right now. Did he say which team was developing Dread? If it was Sakamoto's team, I'm not sure why it would have been noticeably different from Other M anyway. The design decisions Other M suffered from were already set in motion in Fusion, so I doubt that Dread wouldn't have further followed that path either.
 
This. Why do people automatically assume some brilliant and fully realized game was cancelled? Maybe there were not enough ideas or solid enough inspiration to make Dread actually exist?
Indie game devs sure seem to find enough ideas and solid inspiration to make 2D Metroidvania styled games.
 
-Metroid Dread was prototyped and shown to other Nintendo development teams, including NST.
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
-At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".

This reminds me of when Intelligent Systems redesigned Paper Mario 3DS because Miyamoto thought it was a "port" of The Thousand-Year Door. What an unbelievably inept company.
 

Berordn

Member
I think some people might be misreading "prototyped with graphics similar to Fusion" as "sequel to Fusion with the same graphical style."
 
So Nintendo basically thinks NST is shit these days, not even telling them Federation Force was in development. I guess that's unsurprising, as they've been put on C-tier projects for ages now.
 

Dr. Buni

Member
I could shit out a Metroidvania too. Not a quality one, mind you.
Good for you, but indie developers have actual great ideas for Metroidvania games. It is hilarious to see that a huge company like Nintendo can't do the same. They obviously just don't want to.
 

Peltz

Member
You'd think that Nintendo fanboys would be embracing indies considering those are the only developers still supporting Nintendo. Don't bite the hand that feeds.

I've embraced indies as have many other Nintendo fans. I'm not sure why you think they haven't.
 
I don't have time to watch this video right now. Did he say which team was developing Dread? If it was Sakamoto's team, I'm not sure why it would have been noticeably different from Other M anyway. The design decisions Other M suffered from were already set in motion in Fusion, so I doubt that Dread wouldn't have further followed that path either.
True, but they made Zero Mission in between, which was BRILLIANT.
 

MrBadger

Member
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".

152.png
 

Glowsquid

Member
This reminds me of when Intelligent Systems redesigned Paper Mario 3DS because Miyamoto thought it was a "port" of The Thousand-Year Door. What an unbelievably inept company.

Before anyone get any wrong idea from this, there's nothing in the vid that indicates the prototype was scrapped for being too derivative. It's common-sense for prototypes to reuse assets instad of wasting money making new stuff : p.

----

To understand why 2D Metroid is in the spot it is now and (maybe) what happened to Metroid Dread, I think it's important to first understand how Nintendo is structured:

The 2D Metroids were developed by Nintendo R&D1, Nintendo's biggest internal team after EAD. In 2004, Iwata dissolved the R&D departments and created SPD so that Miyamoto wouldn't have to supervise third-party productions. Unlike the other R&D # teams, the game-making part of R&D 1 survived when it was reorganised as SPD 1, but the restructure reduced the number of programmers/etc, and some of the people who had experience making R&D 1's action-adventure games were shifted elsewhere or had recently retired (most notably, Hiroji Kiyotake, creator of Samus). Meanwhile, the younger staff members of SPD 1 had a major success with WarioWare, and followed it with more successful games in that mold, so there was little incentive for these new employees to work on Metroid. SPD 1's small size is why Other M was outsourced to Team Ninja.

So yeah, unless we get additional insight Dread, I think the lack of 2D Metroid is mostly due to silly business realities. Of course it's all speculation~
 
The bad single player was the least of the game's problems IMO. The touch controls were awful, and made the multiplayer unplayable for me. It's one of those early DS games representative of the time period where Nintendo still thought tacking touch controls onto any type of gameplay was a good idea, an idea they've since moved away from (thank god).

I still wonder to this day what could have been if Hunters had been conceived as a console game with proper analog stick controls instead. "I can't wait to play an FPS on a tiny touch screen" said literally no one ever.
 

KingBroly

Banned
You'd think that Nintendo fanboys would be embracing indies considering those are the only developers still supporting Nintendo. Don't bite the hand that feeds.

It's hard to support a lot of indie titles, since they outweigh normal publishers by so much. I try to support indie titles when a game interests me, but it's pretty hard to find one that really grabs my interest out of the gate.

Anyway, I imagine Dread was somehow re-purposed into Other M, because Sakamoto isn't exactly flush with ideas for the series, as that game showed.
 

Vanpira

Member
This isn't new information we knew about this game a long time ago. All signs pointed to it being a remake of Metroid II, similar to Metroid: Zero Mission.
 
Good thing indie devs are shitting out plenty of quality ones.

Meanwhile Nintendo's being Nintendo.

If the indie Metroidvanias were so numerous and quality, why would people still be fiending for a new traditional Metroid and flipping out about Federation Force? Obviously something is lacking with all these indievanias.
 

Ray Down

Banned
-Metroid Dread was prototyped and shown to other Nintendo development teams, including NST.
-Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
-At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".

good-times-damn-damn-damn-o.gif
 
One thing that stuck out to me from the video was that not only is NST not making Federation Force, they didn't even know about it until it was announced at E3.
 
If the indie Metroidvanias were so numerous and quality, why would people still be fiending for a new traditional Metroid and flipping out about Federation Force? Obviously something is lacking with all these indievanias.
I've got an easy answer:
People want a game with the Metroid world. The Metroidvania games are all great in their own right, but they're still not another actual Metroid game.
 
Samus Aran

Amongst other things, but you're absolutely right. There could be millions of "quality" indivanias in existence and they probably wouldn't add up to a new, traditional Metroid in many people's minds. So let's not act like since there are a few decent indievanias out there that Nintendo isn't doing their job or whatever.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
  • Metroid Dread was prototyped and shown to other Nintendo development teams, including NST.
  • Dread used 2D graphics. One VIP described it as "looking like a port of Fusion".
  • At that point of development, the game had dropped the "Dread" codename and was simply known as "Metroid".
;_;
 

MrBadger

Member
If the indie Metroidvanias were so numerous and quality, why would people still be fiending for a new traditional Metroid and flipping out about Federation Force? Obviously something is lacking with all these indievanias.

I've yet to play an indie game that's captured everything I like about the 2D Metroids. Plus that's kinda like asking why people still like Mario games when indies are making countless 2D platformers. Nintendo are good at their jobs.
 
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