Even more than twenty years later, there are still secrets left to be discovered from the development of Metroid Prime! Recently, some never before seen development renders and concept art have surfaced from two developers, James Dargie and Greg Luzniak, who worked on Metroid Prime in its early iterations, on their personal websites. Neither one was credited in the finished game.

In James’ case, he shared a vertical platforming section he called the “Danger Shaft”, intended for Prime as a third-person game before it switched to first-person. Additionally, he posted test images for a holographic effect on Samus’s Arm Cannon, a cipher for the Space Pirate language, and renders for a “Killmeleon”, a previously unknown creature that was apparently scrapped from Prime. James previously shared the “Danger Shaft” for a late 2022 video from DidYouKnowGaming that shared other secrets from Prime’s development. Other content he’s shared, like a scrapped Reactor Room, and his personal name for Samus’s Gunship, the Thrush Eterna, were shared previously.

As for Greg, he shared a piece of concept art depicting multiple creatures. They include the War Wasp (which survived into the final game), an early Space Pirate design that more closely resembles a Zebesian, potential early designs for a Sheegoth-like and Lumigek-like creature, and a mammalian creature that may represent a Blood Monkey! In our second interview with Jack Mathews, he said that Blood Monkeys would have moved and attacked like real monkeys, but did not recall seeing artwork for them. Well, we’re happy to say it’s real!
This content was brought to our attention by a user named Spimpom on Wikitroid. According to one of their administrators, Bearborg, when he shared the Space Pirate text with the Chozo Language Discord server, their analysis concluded it was not a constructed language. A member of that server has contacted James for comment.

What cool findings! Who knows what other secrets remain to be discovered?

Source: James Dargie/Greg Luzniak/Wikitroid