The release of Metroid Prime Remastered was a pleasant surprise for owners of the Nintendo Switch console last week. Announced and launched as part of the company"s latest Nintendo Direct online event, the game gave Switch owners a way to play an HD version of the acclaimed first person action-adventure game that was originally developed by Retro Studios for the GameCube console way back in 2002.
While most of the reviews of the remastered version of the game have been positive, some members of the original Metroid Prime development team at Retro Studios have a particular issue with the game. They point out that the credits for the remastered edition only mention this statement:"Based on the work of Nintendo Prime (original Nintendo GameCube and Wii Versions) Development Staff."
Zoid Kirsch, the creator of Quake"s Threewave CTF mode who later worked on the original Metroid Prime game, posted this on his Twitter feed:
While many studios did amazing work on the remaster, I"m let down Metroid Prime"s Remaster does not include the full original game credits. I worked with so many amazing people on the game and everyone"s name should be included in the remaster, not just a single card like this.
His opinion was echoed by another former Retro Studios team member Jack Mathews, who wrote his own Twitter post to express his feelings of being left out of the credits:
This is a travesty. Not just for my credit (even though most of my code was probably replaced), but for people whose code and work are largely unchanged, like Mark HH, Steve McCrea, all of the uprezzed art and concepts, the game design. Shameful. https://t.co/y6tXyCG3N1
— Jack Mathews (@jack_mathews) February 12, 2023
Both Kirsch and Mathews have also posted Twitter messages that praised Metroid Prime Remastered itself for being a solid revamp of the game. Kirsch does have an issue with how the doors in the game look compared to the original, saying "I tend to be a bet[sic] picky about this since I literally spent months working on the doors. This should be fixed."
Retro Studios also developed Metroid Prime 2 for the GameCube and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Nintendo Wii console. In 2019, it was announced the studio was working on Metroid Prime 4, after Nintendo decided it was not happy with the game"s progress at its previous developer. Since that 2019 announcement, there"s been no official word on the game"s development.