Jacobo Luengo

Hey everyone! Jacobo here. I’m a game designer working in the video game industry since 2008. I’ve been part of different companies, some of which have unfortunately closed and others are still active. I’ve had the pleasure of working on all kinds of projects for both consoles and PCs and with people from very different backgrounds. I’m still active and approaching each new project as an adventure.

Apart from that, playing video games in my free time is one of my biggest hobbies, as well as movies, music, reading and generally learning all kinds of things. I’ve been a big fan of the Metroid saga since I was a kid, so having the opportunity to talk to you is a great pleasure, as I’ve always admired and valued the work you do and your dedication to this saga that brings us such good times.

Well, it all started like most people, since I have always been a gamer for as long as I can remember. In my case, my brother was a big influence in that sense because he is much older than me and he was the one who brought the games home, especially for the ZX Spectrum.

As the years went by, I not only continued playing everything I could but I also learned things like drawing, graphic design tools, 3D programs, musical composition and even programming. But, without a doubt, what caught my attention the most was what was behind the games and what made them different from one another. Why, despite there being so many platform games, none was like Super Mario Bros, or Sonic, or Shinobi, or Ghosts ‘n Goblins or Castlevania… And that, over the years and after going through other industries, I ended up discovering that it was what I wanted to dedicate myself to.

The first Metroid game I remember playing was Metroid II on the Game Boy. But honestly, I didn’t understand anything haha. I was used to more straightforward games or games ported from the arcades, and a game that big and without a map was just too much for me. Luckily, I rented it before buying it, so I was able to spend that money on another game (something I regret looking back).

Afterwards, things were very different when I tried Super Metroid. A friend from school lent it to me and it simply blew my mind. The setting, the dark tone, how the game guided you by giving you little clues, the spectacular bosses, the secrets it hid… And from then on I’ve played all the ones that have come out, both original titles and remakes.

Hahaha I really can’t describe the taste. The body was filled with cake (I think chocolate) but the outside, legs, face and mouth were completely made of sugar, which made it hard to eat without getting an overdose of sweetness. There were also some little cupcakes with a frosting on top in the colors of Alpha Metroid that were delicious. In any case, both things were something that made us so excited that no one on the team could find fault with it except for the fact that it was the size of an Alpha and not a Queen.

Well, I used to refer to it as “oil” (because of its appearance and physical properties) but there were people in the team who called it “honey”, “wax” or even “Metroid drool”.

The theory of coming from Chozo machinery is very interesting. Those remains are located in parts of the planet where there’s no evidence of Chozo past, but once SR-388 is locked down, Chozo robots are running riot, so it could make sense.

What I’m convinced of is that, if they were remains of parasite X, we would also find them in other colors other than yellow. Thinking about it, I’m coming up with some good ideas about having different properties for each color like slimes in Portal 2.

Video games are never made from scratch and it is very common for all studios to take advantage of the knowledge and technology of previous projects, even more so in those that use their own engine, such as MercurySteam. But, apart from that, Metroid Dread was always conceived as a new game, the long-awaited continuation of the saga, instead of a reinterpretation as was the case with Samus Returns.

I think that the things we did in Samus Returns to update the saga to current times were preserved in Dread and were enhanced in many ways, also taking advantage of the difference in power between the Nintendo 3DS and Switch. But something that I think is always positive is not pigeonholing ourselves with previous concepts, no matter how much we like them, and thus being able to have the possibility of thinking of new ideas without restrictions.

It was a wonderful feeling. I was one of those who always looked forward to the release of the sequel to Metroid Fusion and I would never have imagined in 2005, when it was announced, that many years later I would be part of it. That also meant that they believed in me again as a designer and on a personal level that is a great pride and a boost of motivation to continue working hard on a saga in which I have always felt at home.

For me, one of the best things about Metroid is that each installment introduces new moves for Samus that offer more possibilities in both exploration and combat. Metroid II introduced the Spring Ball and Space Jump, Super Metroid introduced the Shinespark and Wall Jump, Metroid Fusion introduced the Power Grip and the ability to climb ladders and “monkey bars”, to name just a few. And I think the natural evolution of Samus was to be a character whose superiority over her enemies consisted not only of her powerful arsenal and her cold-bloodedness, but also of her superior speed and agility.

The slide is an ability that fits perfectly with this idea and in that sense I am very happy with how we implemented it because it is also perfectly compatible with free aim, melee counter and even with the Morph Ball.

In general, in games I think it’s important to have both skills that enhance previously acquired skills and skills that are part of a character’s basic moveset and that accompany the player throughout their journey through the game, especially if they adapt to the player’s speed of thought and reaction so that they don’t become a burden in any way. Also, as a fan of series like Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta, this is the way I, as a player, like games to feel.

It was certainly very difficult. Metroid is a series that puts a lot of mobility-related abilities at the player’s disposal. Each of them is designed to overcome a different type of situation, but they offer enough flexibility that the player can consider using them in other situations.

Add to that the number of players who tend to look for ways to bypass parts of the map, and all you can do is try to minimize it as much as possible by covering all the cases you can think of.

I did not work explicitly on the design of those situations you mention, but my colleagues did a very conscientious job of detecting unawared situations and preventing softblocks from occurring.

Editor’s note: The Bomb Block in question is this one at “Forking Shaft”. The game lets the player ignore Bombs until Speed Booster, but if they sequence break past the block, the player can still traverse through Ferenia and the upper parts of Burenia, eventually leading to a situation where the player can no longer progress the game.

Most people tend to see speedrunning as a rivalry between the player and the developer to see who can outdo the other. Working on this series has been an eye-opener for me and I’ve since seen it more as a collaboration. Metroid is a key series in speedrunning culture, being one of the most anticipated series in competitions. I’m the first one to be amazed at how players manage to beat world records, as well as giving me clues about what tools or exploits are more likely to be used in games to achieve this.

One of the craziest moments I remember was Mr_Shasta at Games Done Quick 2018 trying to get through an elevator plate with the Spider Ball during the Metroid: Samus Returns competition and how the audience participated in it. Those kinds of moments are something that personally make me proud because, above all, I’ve always believed in video games as a way for people to be happier.

Sure! That’s another thing that has always characterized the series. The use of the Grapple Beam to electrocute Draygon when he grabs you in Super Metroid is a good example of that and for me one of the best examples of lateral thinking in the history of video games.

That was something I personally enjoyed a lot while doing Metroid: Samus Returns because of the high number of Metroids and bosses you had to fight, and in Metroid Dread I liked it even more because some even contain a little nod to the player who has made an effort to achieve it (like the one you mention of Kraid with the bomb, which is something he can do as a result of a feat he has managed to do before).

Anyway, although many of these situations are there because of the developers’ idea and are carefully thought out, others arise as a result of the effort of thousands of players around the world who dedicate an immense amount of hours to applying sequence breaking to speedrunning.

I have always believed that providing a set of tools to the player that allow them to think about how to overcome seemingly difficult situations using creativity, skill or logic, is one of the best ways to generate that satisfaction that will make them remember that moment in a special way.

I can’t remember for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point it was at least considered or even tried. The problem I see with that is that it would change the gameplay a lot and give more importance to aiming than to the face buttons, which are used for basic actions like jumping, shooting, melee countering or using the Flash Shift, and these are actions the player needs to have on hand at all times.

For that reason, something that I think worked well and would like to see in more games of the genre is the addition of sensitive aiming while Samus is running, which is a nice way to allow aiming on the move but without the hassle of having to keep switching the right thumb from the buttons to the stick to do so.

Well, when working on a console game, the limitations and restrictions of the hardware are much greater than when working on a PC, where many of the conflicts can be resolved with computing power. If something doesn’t run as smoothly as it should, the player can always buy a more powerful graphics card or a better processor. On consoles, that has to be resolved with ingenuity and technical knowledge.

That is one of the advantages offered by proprietary engines, since they can be custom-developed for specific hardware and allow developers to have control over everything that happens at a low level, giving more priority to those aspects that the game needs. In that sense, I think that the MercurySteam team is very good and there were many talented people who were able to squeeze the most out of the hardware, as they already demonstrated in Metroid: Samus Returns, which ran stably and fluidly even with the 3D effect activated, and later with Metroid Dread and its 60fps in both handheld and docked mode.

I really don’t know what to tell you about this topic. It doesn’t sound like something that happened while I was still working on the project. Sometimes changes occur during development and it’s more viable to hide something than to remove it because of the butterfly effect it could cause. Maybe that’s why, but as I say, I have no idea about it.

Video games are a lot like movies in that they use a lot of tricks to show certain things based on what’s on screen. In video games in particular, this is usually done for production or performance reasons, since many things are processed even if they’re not on screen, and AI is one of those things that is often disabled to reduce CPU load.

I didn’t work specifically on that part of AI, but something I’ve always liked a lot is that EMMI doesn’t use this trick. It’s always there, and I think that helps to emphasize the threat that this enemy poses, as well as to talk about the great work that the team did in this regard.

There were certainly a lot of good ideas and many different designs considered, but in the end you always end up with the idea that best meets all the requirements you set out. It’s all a mix of visual design, gameplay requirements, level design constraints, as well as feasibility from a technical point of view, since the characters have to be modelled, animated, have VFX and SFX…

But something I really like about EMMI is that all the movements he makes are possible with his real physiognomy and he is able to both fold himself up to enter a Morph Ball tunnel and walk upright, thus occupying the entire height of a corridor. Also the fact that his face contains both his weak point and his most lethal weapon, which is the stinger, seems to me a very interesting contrast.

This is pure personal theory but I don’t believe it. The information in the Metroid Dread intro is very significant to me.

If you look closely, it says that the X Parasite, unlike Metroids, is characterized by its inability to be controlled. In addition, it has an instinctive need to replicate itself and spread to increasingly stronger hosts.

On the other hand, in the image that the player unlocks by getting all the collectibles in Elun, a Mawkin-X is seen revealing itself to Raven Beak, and at that moment neither of them seems to have adopted a combat stance, which would make me think that there has been some kind of prior understanding between them. On the other hand, I think that the X Parasite does not consider Raven Beak a strong host or at least not the strongest one it has met and even infected, which is Samus. Otherwise it would have tried to absorb her DNA to replicate it at that moment since it could see in SR388 that not even the Chozo can finish it off – not without the help of the Metroids.

Seeing that, what I imagine (and this is where the most interpretive part of all comes in) is that what they’ve done is come to some kind of agreement. Maybe to somehow get Samus to travel to ZDR? The video that the federation receives could have been created in a consensual manner. Of course, each one could have their own reasons for doing so. Raven Beak wants Samus to join his cause and Parasite X… help him to get it to see if with Chozo technology they can separate Metroid DNA from Samus and then replicate her form?

I don’t know. I don’t think this theory makes much sense either because there are several holes like why the X copy of Quiet Robe helped Samus. But in any case it’s something I’d like us to discover one day.

It’s hard to explain the process in a simple way because it’s the result of many conversations and the work of many people over a long period of time. As with all games, you start with an initial premise that ends up becoming a bunch of ideas that you’ve shaped, trying out different options along the way.

Very rarely do you get the final result on the first try, but rather it’s a very iterative process in which you’re constantly making adjustments and testing until everything is the way you want it. I always say that it’s like building a machine, in which you first design the blueprints, then you make some parts with prototype molds, you test them, you adjust them, you have the final ones made, you install them, you adjust them again…

Something that always comes into play a lot is the player’s feelings. What do you expect the player to feel at each moment, what do you want to offer in terms of surprising events, rewards, playable situations, challenging combat… all of that is well studied and it is a matter of proposing a logical order for all of those ideas that maintains the player’s interest while at the same time posing a challenge tailored to each player’s skill, taking into account the variety of profiles that there may be.

In this sense, what I have always noticed and highlighted above all has been a care for detail and a respect for the player and the saga that I had not seen before in any project I had worked on.

From a design perspective, Scan Pulse is a very difficult ability to balance because it’s so useful for exploration, which makes it very tempting to use constantly, like Detective Vision in titles like the Batman Arkham series or the new Tomb Raider trilogy. And since a lot of Metroidvanias are based on exploration, giving that resource almost constantly can hinder the experience for some players.

You might think that one way to avoid that is to limit the amount of use that the player can make of it, either by increasing Aeion consumption, by putting it on cooldown, etc. However, any of those options have consequences because you don’t want to discourage players from stopping using it or from stopping using other Aeion abilities to use it (because the energy was shared), so to me the decision to give it later in the game and modify the way it works seems perfect. Especially considering that as the player progresses through the game and unlocks abilities, backtracking for additional resources becomes more important.

It should also be noted that in Metroid Dread, unlike Samus Returns where the map was made up of cells with a limited amount of information, the map is much more detailed and a Scan Pulse as it was in the previous game would have completely ruined the experience in my opinion.

Some of them have, but now it’s not Samus who uses them but Raven Beak. If you look closely, you’ll be able to recognize two of them, but used in the style of this Chozo soldier.

I personally love the Aeion abilities in Samus Returns and I think they add a lot of flavor to the classic abilities of the series. At the same time, as they are something that was first introduced there, I also think they are the perfect element for developers to be able to change them without modifying the classic essence of the series too much and thus be able to offer new playable options in each installment. Still, I hope that one day we will see them again because I think that a handful of exciting situations can still be developed with them.

I don’t think they have any relation. If you look at the reward image you get for getting all the Dairon collectibles, you’ll see that the way Experiment No. Z-57 was researched is indeed similar to that of the Metroids, but from the very beginning, you can see that both creatures are clearly different.

Unfortunately, it’s one of the mysteries that will become part of the saga and I don’t know if there will ever be an answer. For me, I have no doubt that I would give you the [Classified]. Hahaha

It certainly looks like it, but what about those fangs? I don’t think it is, but who knows? Maybe an evolved X copy of Drogyga once existed and the Chozo killed it before the events of Metroid Dread.

It was a great honor for everyone to bring back Ridley in Samus Returns and it was also something that was very well received by the fans so we thought that something similar would be well received in Dread as well.

I don’t remember where the idea came from exactly but, at least for me, the choice to bring back Kraid was the one that excited me the most because he is one of the most beloved bosses in the series. I really enjoyed working on Kraid and had a great experience thinking about how to bring him back offering something new in terms of mechanics while keeping his classic signature moves. We put a lot of effort into getting to the current result but I think it was worth it.

There are so many possibilities that I wouldn’t know which one to choose. Something I’ve always liked about the Metroid saga is that it has forged its own path, far from the fashions and trends of the current era, and I’d like that to continue being that way. I’m not closing myself off to anything because what I’m clear about is that everything has to evolve. One thing I’m clear about is that, whatever lies ahead, as long as the saga is in the hands of such talented and enthusiastic people, they won’t let us down.

Of course! I am extremely grateful for the support they have given to the series and the patience they have had in receiving the conclusion of a story arc that began almost 40 years ago and that has accompanied several generations of players. I also thank them for letting me be a part of their lives during the time they have played the games I have worked on, since I believe that time is the most precious thing we have. If even for a little while I have been able to make some people happy, everything I have gone through to get here will have been worth it.

Lastly, I must say that I’m very excited with the release of Metroid Prime 4 and I know you are too. Samus needs us for the great adventure that is to come. So remember: See you next mission!