Some Metroid Prime 4 news - Retro Studios hires former Halo character designer.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/metroid-prime-4-team-secures-artist-behind-halo’s-spartans.1508593/

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/metroid-prime-4-team-secures-artist-behind-halos-spartans/

Kyle Hefley

Hefley is a vastly experienced character modeller who has worked on more than 20 titles, including Call of Duty: Black Ops and Sleeping Dogs. Most relevant for Hefley’s new role, however, is his nine years at Microsoft’s 343 Industries.

Hefley acted as senior character modeller for the Halo series and modelled many or the armoured super soldiers and alien warriors that appeared in Halo 4, Halo 5 and the upcoming Halo Infinite, including Halo 5’s Master Chief.

The artist’s portfolio, which includes many sci-fi designs reminiscent of the Metroid Prime series, seemingly makes him a good fit for the Nintendo franchise.

Nintendo announced earlier this year that it had decided to “restart development from the beginning” for Metroid Prime 4, with producer Kensuke Tanabe calling in Retro to take over the project from its original, unannounced developer.

Retro has been hiring for Metroid Prime 4 ever since and its jobs page is still advertising for an art director, environment designer and more.

Some of his character art designs

Cool. I liked the character models in Halo 4 and 5. Really looking forward to seeing anything on this Metroid Prime 4 game.

I think it's a good background for someone working on Metroid to have worked on Halo. I kind of hope Metroid can keep its own sense of style a bit though.

Is there a reason that Nintendo has a problem with Metroid’s development that they’ve scratched and restarted development for two of its games now? Do they just toss it at an unproven team? Don’t they take into consideration who’s doing it before they begin?

Really great news cause I love Halo series as it is and anything to take inspiration from Halo to Metroid Prime 4 is always welcome :)

Cool. Judging by his work, he'll fit in nicely.

Good news it's strange retro studios haven't made a single game in so long I forgot all about them.

I think it was simply announced way earlier than most Nintendo games are. How often does it happen that we only see a working title for a Nintendo game? So I think this happens more often than we get to notice.

Wow, haven't seen a FireEmblem_Man thread in a while.

Definitely. I also think Nintendo didn't have any plans for a long time to make any new Metroid, since it doesn't sell that well compared to their other shit. After much complaining from fans they basically caved and said they're making a new one, even though they just started development, in order to generate more interest in the newly arrived Switch, and to calm their Metroid fans.

They're also probably not sure themselves on what they want to do with the series, which is probably the reason why they gave the project to a studio they turned out not happy with. Just like you say, that probably happens way more at Nintendo than we get to know about.

It feels so dumb. Retro Studios haven't done shit since the last DK (that we know of), so they could've been working on a new Metroid from the beginning, which would mean we'd be playing Metroid Prime 4 right now. But nooooo, they had to put Retro on projects than never see the light instead until they realize it was a mistake to give Metroid to anyone else. Fans pay the price by waiting several more years than they should've.

MP4 should've been a launch title, or something in the middle. Now we'll maybe have it when it's time for Nintendo's next console. Hopefully, Nintendo are done treating Metroid like shit and gives it the love it deserves in the future.

The way Nintendo has used retro studios has been nothing short of abysmal. Too good a studio to release 1 game in god knows how long.

Yup. No idea what the hell Nintendo is doing. All games from Retro have been gold. Talk about wasted potential.

You say it as if it's a bad thing.

It's a great thing!

this is great news!

@Litchie: I will be playing Prime 4 as if it’s going to be the last Metroid we’ll see....because there’s a good chance it will be.

I think you're right, sadly. Indie studios would have to take over then. Hollow Knight is a better game than Samus Returns anyway. And I wouldn't want them making Metroid games without wanting to. That would just result in half assed attempts. You don't half ass Metroid.

I'm a bit worried for MP4, since I didn't really like the direction MP3 went into. Hope it'll be better than 3. But I have faith in Retro Studios. All games they've made has been great. And the last game they made was amazing.

@Litchie: I would welcome if Nijntendo gives Team Ninja another shot at Metroid series. I get that not everyone like Other M but I actually accepted what that game was and if Nintendo couldn't get Retro Studios for another Prime series, then I'll gladly take Team Ninja. Team Ninja did their best with Other M and while they get alot of crap for it, I be okay if Nintendo gave'em a second chance with Metroid Prime 4 development.

Other M was a good game. Boring environments, lack of exploration and bad story/voice acting was lame, but otherwise it was good. Another Metroid like Other M, but improved in those things, would be awesome. Loved the gameplay.

I'd rather have Team Ninja work on a different Metroid than MP4, though. That's Retro's baby.

How has Retro Studios not released anything in almost 6 years? I believe Donkey Kong came out February 2014

I'd love to see Moon Studios (Ori) take on Metroid. Every time I play that game I can't help but think of what a Metroid would be like in that engine. Samus Returns was extremely disappointing to me, as with what tech can afford nowadays for 2D platforming, it felt a game from a decade + ago if not more. The bar has been raised by the likes of Ori (and definitely Hollow Knight). It would also not be nearly as expensive to produce as a full fledged 3D entry such as Prime.

Yeah, agreed.

So will he be able to answer the eternal question, who'd win in a fight between Master Chief and Metroid? :P

Retro could and should be releasing system seller megatons, on a much more regular basis. Not even necessarily Metroid but they surely could have had a AAA action/adventure or RPG ready for Switch at this point? Something as big and badass as an Arkham game or Horizon Zero Dawn, a real crown jewel title.

Instead Nintendo has them releasing 2D platformers and helping with Mario Kart. I'll never understand Ninty :)

I wonder who the heck was developing it, and why.

hope retro can still do a good job, but regardless, glad they’re doing this and not another IMO garbage donkey king country game.

100% agree. I don’t care about the 2D part, I just think dkc is garbage, both way too hard, and way too simplistic for a platformer released after Super Mario Brothers ONE.

I wouldn’t say the prime games are perfect, but they’re at worst mostly great, and the kind of games Nintendo needs more of.

I wanted them to work on something different, but at this point it’s been TWELVE YEARS, and 9 years since the last metroid game of any sort, so I’ll take it! Probably a system seller for me.

after that imo terrible motion control Zelda game, I sort of wanted retro to take over Zelda, but then breath of the wild (I haven't Played the 3DS one yet) is somehow amazing, so while I’d still enjoy seeing retro do a Zelda game, the core team seems on track again.

That just sounds like someone who sucks at the game and haven't played much of it.

Yeah, Retro's DK games are pretty hard. But there are way harder platformers.

Simplistic? Yeah, you probably haven't played a lot of it. The beginning stages are usually simplistic in platformers.

@Litchie: simplistic compared with Super Mario Brothers 1, much less later, vastly better platformers.

it’s a complete waste of Retro’s talent IMO. I don’t begrudge people who like them, but need more to a game, and abhor games that are hard for the sake of being hard.

@Litchie: the DKC games are very hard platformers

Eh. They're hard, but not exceptionally.

Compared to stuff like Super Meat Boy, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Mega Man, Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario Bros. 2: Lost Levels, Cuphead, not really.

@FireEmblem_Man:

We're basically gonna have a better, more realistic version of Samus. Nice!

Seems like a good match to me. Metroid has an established lore but he has a track record that is positive. Should be a good game. Didn't even know they were making it.