It’s been about a year-and-a-half since Nintendo first announced Metroid Prime 4 for the Nintendo Switch, and many of us fans have completely understood that this is a production that wouldn’t come to fruition overnight. However, given the usual trend of announcements vs releases, it was assumed this could be a late-2019 release, with its first big appearance being at this year’s E3.

However, if you were really hedging your bets on this one coming out this year, we have some bad news. In a video update on the official Nintendo YouTube channel, senior managing executive officer Shinya Takahashi stated that they would be starting over on the game from scratch. Originally, this game was set to feature a brand-new development team, but now it appears that Nintendo will now be collaborating with Retro Studios, the studio responsible for the first three Metroid Prime games, to ensure its quality.

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Here’s what Takahashi had to say:

“Nintendo always strives for the highest quality in our games; and in the development phase, we challenge ourselves and confront whether the game is living up to that quality on a daily basis. If we are not satisfied with the quality, we aren’t able to deliver it to our customers with confidence, and the game will not live up to our fans’ expectations.

“From this perspective, we have determined that the current development of the game is very challenged, and we had to make a difficult decision as a development team. We have decided to reexamine the development structure itself and change it. Specifically, we have decided to have the Producer, Kensuke Tanabe, work in trust and collaboration with the studio that developed the original Metroid Prime series, Retro Studios in the United States, and restart development from the beginning.

By collaborating and developing with Retro Studios, we believe we can make this game something that will meet our fans’ expectations.”

So, the bad news is that we likely won’t get this game for another few years, at least. The good news, however, is that when the game does come out, it will not disappoint. The fact that Nintendo was willing to actually come out and make this announcement at all really speaks to their character and it was an admirable decision. They honestly could have very well just stayed silent on the whole thing, and we’d have no choice but to just assume a troubled development for years to come.

In doing this, they’re getting ahead of the bad press and building good faith with their fans, ensuring them that when the game does come, it will live up to expectations, and I can’t express just how good that makes me feel, even if it means I won’t be able to help myself to a new Metroid Prime game for another few years. Here’s hoping they at least give us an HD remake of the original trilogy to help keep us occupied in the meantime!

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SOURCES: Nintendo