Hopefully Actual Development Has Started At This Point
Metroid Prime 4 has been in the works for several years. We first got a logo reveal back in what, 2017? The hotly anticipated sequel was already a ways off before Nintendo handed it to a totally different studio, aka the people who made the first three games. This was a Very Large Setback, which makes sense! But that was also a number of years ago. So why is Retro Studios still hiring very important staff to help develop and design their game? Shouldn’t they have locked down all their hiring decisions quite a while ago? Am I total jerk for thinking this is unreasonable and/or weird?
The position in question is an AI/Boss Designer, as described in this Tweet from Retro Studios. Bosses are a pretty big deal in Metroid Prime games, so it’s good that they’re locking that down. Can’t have a Metroid game with boring or terrible bosses, after all. They also snagged a new Director of Development back in September, and they went looking for a Lead Producer in August. That’s three top-level positions filled in the last six months. For reference, Retro has been working on this game since around January of 2019.
Beyond these hiring and job search announcements, we’ve heard nothing at all about the next Metroid Prime game. But based on these hiring posts from the last six months, we can be sure that both the game and the dev team will have bosses. One further assumes that those bosses will be hanging out in stages situated within a larger world, but that’s pure speculation at this point. Presumably the management team at Retro Studios will also have lairs, though they should be free of lava pits and ice walls. Metroid Prime 4 is coming to either the Nintendo Switch or Nintendo’s next console sometime before the heat death of the universe.