Metroid Prime 5 is not in development; Tanabe hopes Tabata will complete the Sylux arc
Kensuke Tanabe's farewell as Nintendo's veteran transoceanic producer is not the only news to come out of the interview with the Metroid Prime 4: Beyond team featured in the March issue of Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream (published yesterday). The extensive article, as one might expect, also offers new details about the game's tortuous development until Retro Studios brought it to fruition, some of which align with previous speculation and assumptions, while others reveal the truth.
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Perhaps the most important fact for fans today is that, while Metroid Prime 5 is not yet in development or even being planned, Beyond was conceived as part of a larger narrative arc dedicated to Sylux that could accommodate more instalments in the future, perhaps including a second trilogy.
Tanabe, who will no longer be involved in his favourite series, hopes that his successor, Risa Tabata, will be able to complete these stories with Retro Studios, leaving the door open for the FPA branch to live on. Although some insiders or leakers such as "Nash Weedle" suggested that Metroid Prime 5 had already begun development in parallel (something that was already inconceivable given the structure of the studio in the final phase of Beyond or Nintendo's tradition with this and other franchises), this interview makes it clear that this was not the case, and that a transition period between producers and, naturally, Nintendo's approval of a hypothetical fifth instalment will be necessary, something that fans want and even expect given the relative success of the fourth.
The Sylux saga: The untold stories of the Hunter in Metroid Prime... 5?
Regarding the stories linked to the bounty hunter Sylux, the villain of the latest instalment, Tanabe, a film buff, first explains that with the ending of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond he wanted to create deliberate hesitance or conflict at the decisive moment before pressing the button to end the game. Those of you who have played on Switch or Switch 2 already know what and when he is referring to, and Tanabe assures us that he had already tried something similar in the recently restored The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and that he prefers films with finales that leave a mark rather than happy endings. Even so, he expected potential negative reactions to that divisive ending.
The Japanese developer had known for some time that Beyond would be his last Metroid and therefore his last chance to explore the character of Sylux. [Spoilers] Thus, MP4 would be the first part of the "Sylux saga", which could nevertheless continue without the rogue soldier, although Tanabe does not consider his battle with Samus to be over at the end of the game. Its story goes back, of course, to the conception of Metroid Prime Hunters (2006):
"When we were developing Metroid Prime Hunters, the game designers at NST, the development studio at the time, created complete stories for all the hunters that appeared in the game. This included the scenario in which Sylux 'harbours resentment towards Samus and the Galactic Federation'. At that time, I wanted to further expand the Metroid Prime universe and create various spin-off works in the future. So, even though I thought he might already have his own set of background details, I asked them to 'not finalise the details just yet'. While laying the groundwork in Metroid Prime 3 and the 100% ending of Metroid Prime: Federation Force, I kept thinking, 'Someday I want to make a game about the story surrounding Samus and Sylux'. After that, it was a long time before I had the opportunity to create this game."
In this regard, but already in recent years, the developers wanted to expand the narrative and strengthen the bond with Samus Aran of the various Galactic Federation soldiers who appear in the adventure through various additional events, but tight deadlines meant that these events ended up being cut in the end.
Poor design decisions cannot be attributed to Retro Studios
Another confirmation that emerges from the interview with Kensuke Tanabe is the existence of a project that was restarted twice and built on controversial design decisions that Nintendo no longer wanted to reverse once again. This aligns with what we already knew, that Retro Studios had to continue Metroid Prime 4 with Bandai Namco's project as a skeleton and that Nintendo was not convinced by the open world of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, but could not afford to backtrack again.
In this sense, although Retro developed and refined the initial ideas (and contributed its own), it is clear that it was Nintendo that continued to uphold structural aspects such as the open desert world (criticised for being too empty) or the level design (criticised for being too linear), with the use of Sylux, the ending, or the Vi-O-La bike being very personal choices of Tanabe himself, who was very influenced in the early drafts by Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as he already acknowledged in official interviews.
Other information already known from the game's credits is that the development team included more than 100 members from Retro Studios in Austin, Texas (USA) and some assistance from Next Level Games (Vancouver, Canada), as well as a large number of contract developers and artists (more than 300).
What do you make of this additional information about the development of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond? Do you think there will be a Metroid Prime 5? And if so, what direction should it take?
<bild>Despite all the issues and criticism, both tech and talent remain at Retro Studios and the operation seems to keep running, and that is enough for fans to ask and hope for a Metroid Prime 5.</bild>
[Source: Nintendo Dream print magazine via Weibo]