It’s been nearly 5 full years since Nintendo announced Metroid Prime 4, and with several updates and changes to the development process, it’s dangerously close to being considered in “development hell.” Thankfully, we got a quick reminder that the game does in fact exists and is still being worked on right now. Retro Studios recently posted a job listing for multiple positions at their studio, all of which is to work on Metroid Prime 4. While it’s great to see that the game isn’t dead, it also shows that it’s more than likely nowhere close to being done.
As you can see in the post, Retro is looking for Tools Engineer and a Technology Engineer to work on the project. However, if you check out the actual listing, they also need a plethora of others spots filled, which doesn’t exactly mean that it’s nearing its completion. Some of the positions include concept artist, environment designer, and environment artist just to name a few. These are all key positions for any video game project, let alone one of the most anticipated entries in one of the most beloved franchises. With so many aspects that are apparently needed to complete this, it’s looking more and more like we’re going to have to wait a lot longer before we get our hands on it.
As we already mentioned, Metroid Prime 4 was revealed in 2017 during Nintendo’s E3 Direct presentation. The original developers were Bandai Namco, before being taken out of the equation completely and then handed over to longtime Prime developers Retro Studios where it was “restarted.” This was back in 2019 before the COVID-19 Pandemic hit and created a world-changing effect that caused several projects to either halt, slow down, or be completely canceled. Thankfully Nintendo was able to rebound a bit with the recent Metroid Dread, which was one of the most critically acclaimed titles of 2021. However, for those still waiting on Metroid Prime 4, it looks like we’ll be doing a whole lot more of that for the foreseeable future.