We are thrilled to share our interview with Bryan Walker, the former Senior Director of Development at Retro Studios. Bryan’s credits include Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and the New Play Control! port of the original Metroid Prime. He also played a role during the development of Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Mario Kart 7. Bryan shares his journey through the video game industry, starting with video game reviews, and on to Retro Studios, where he helped to bring some of our favourite Metroid games to retail. The interview touches on a few nice topics, which we won’t spoil in this news post, so be sure to click the link below and give it a read for yourself. We hope that you’ll enjoy it!
Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt was made to tide fans over, Reggie reveals
Former Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé recently published his memoir, Disrupting the Game. One of the stories he shares in it concerns First Hunt, the demo of Metroid Prime Hunters that came with the first launch of Nintendo DS hardware in late 2004. Apparently, Hunters was not progressing through development at the speed Reggie was hoping for, so he suggested making a demo to tide fans over. This was an unpopular decision with the development team at NST, since refocusing on a demo would mean delaying Hunters by six months, but Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto agreed with Reggie. Hence, First Hunt was born.
In our interview with Hunters composer Lawrence Schwedler, he said that First Hunt was a proof of concept, and that NST used the lessons they learned on it in the full game. While it may not have been a popular decision from Nintendo at the time, it ultimately worked out when Hunters released in 2006 to positive reviews.
Source: Nintendo Everything
Episode 23 – Video Game Preservation and Accessibility
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Our twenty-third episode brings two important topics to the discussion table: video game preservation, and video game accessibility, which impact Metroid fans, and video game fans generally. The team talks about how this impacts the Metroid series, and what can be done to change it. We know this is a topic that our community has been quite vocal about, and we hope that others are as keen to see changes happen as we are.
Podcast is hosted by Amanda, with team members Roy and Darren.
00:00 – Congratulations to MercurySteam for their Metroid Dread awards
00:32 – Topic: Video game preservation
12:23 – Topic: Video game accessibility
22:22 – Mailbag: What video game genres could Metroid explore in the future?
27:08 – Bloopers
Special thanks to Stephan Wells for his guidance with editing this podcast.
Feature: The Space Pirates
A brand new feature is now available on our website, this time focusing on the Space Pirate civilisation, seen in the Metroid Prime series. These pirates have been a challenging and deadly foe for the Galactic Federation, and Samus Aran has encountered them on a number of adventures. This feature goes into their rich history, and focuses on their physiology, culture, technology, weaponry and war, and speculates their future. It’s another addition from our team member Quadraxis, which we hope you will consider reading!
Metroid Dread’s Boss Rush mode now available
Late tonight, Nintendo released the second free update for Metroid Dread that was announced back in February during the Nintendo Direct. This update adds the anticipated Boss Rush mode, in which you fight all the bosses one by one, with your damage carrying over to the next fight. Your missiles get restored after each fight, however. You unlock Boss Rush by completing the game once.
That’s not all, however – there’s a Practice Mode so you can prepare yourself and leaderboards to track your completion times. If you complete Boss Rush, you will unlock Survival Rush, which is a time-sensitive version of Boss Rush. Defeating bosses adds time to your clock, as does defeating them without taking damage. Your energy and missiles do not refill after each boss. Finally, there’s Dread Rush, which is unlocked by beating Dread Mode. You must defeat 12 bosses back to back without getting hit once, otherwise it’s Game Over.
This update is available now. Best of luck to those of you attempting any of these modes!
Source: Nintendo
Metroid Dread becomes third biggest Metroid game in the United Kingdom
According to GamesIndustry’s Christopher Dring, Metroid Dread has now had the third biggest launch of a Metroid title in the history of the United Kingdom, second only to Metroid Prime 1 and 3. It has already become the best selling 2D Metroid game in the UK. This is according to sales figures from GfK. While they only accounts for physical sales and does not include digital, it’s a strong indicator that the game will soon become the best selling Metroid game overall, if it hasn’t already.
Source: Christopher Dring
Metroid Dread wins Best Action-Adventure Game from Famitsu
Earlier today, the Famitsu Dengeki Game Awards 2021 took place, and Metroid Dread won the award for Best-Action Adventure Game. This is the same award that it won at The Game Awards in December 2021.
This is another victory for the galaxy’s greatest bounty hunter! As we recently reported, Metroid Dread is also up for EE Game of the Year 2022 at the BAFTA Games Awards on April 7th. Congratulations to MercurySteam and Nintendo on yet another achievement!
Source: Famitsu
Next Level Games’ president and co-founder Douglas Tronsgard is retiring
Today, the president and co-founder of Next Level Games Douglas Tronsgard announced his retirement. In a statement published by Video Games Chronicle, he said:
After over 20 years in the Video Game Industry, I am happy to announce my retirement. I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who helped me on my journey to get here. A special thank you to Nintendo for believing in me and Next Level Games. It’s truly been my honour to be a part of NLG’s incredible history. I look forward to a new chapter in my life that should involve lots of travelling with my wife.
As CEO of the then-independent Next Level Games, Douglas produced their published titles, including Metroid Prime: Federation Force on the Nintendo 3DS. Last year, Nintendo acquired Next Level Games, making Douglas the president. It was recently announced that NLG is working on Mario Strikers: Battle League, which is set to be released on June 10, 2022.
On behalf of the team at Shinesparkers, we would like to thank Douglas for his role in the development of Federation Force, and we wish him a long and happy retirement.
Community Spotlight: RyRyCosmos
Our second Community Spotlight of the year features the work of RyRyCosmos, a character designer and illustrator who makes a lot of Metroid fanart. He’s been making art since he was a kid and his work has been greatly influenced by the colourful style of the Metroid series, citing mostly Metroid Fusion. RyRy’s also very fond of the Fusion Suit design!
Metroid Dread nominated for EE Game of the Year 2022
Today, it was announced that Metroid Dread has been nominated for EE Game of the Year 2022! This award is part of the BAFTA Games Awards and is made possible through a partnership between BAFTA and EE, a British mobile network provider. The other nominees are Deathloop, The Forgotten City, It Takes Two, Unpacking and Chicory: A Colorful Tale. The winner is selected by public ballot. Voting is open today and will close on April 1st, with the winner being announced during the BAFTA Games Awards on April 7th.
Click this link to vote for Metroid Dread.
Source: MercurySteam