No Metroid Prime 4 from Retro Studios as they move on to create other games

Metroid Prime Trilogy for WiiAs mentioned by both Nintendo’s creative director Shigeru Miyamoto and president Satoru Iwata in the past, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption would be the last game in the Metroid Prime trilogy series, and presumably the last Retro-developed Metroid game. No Metroid Prime 4 for awhile then.

In this Yahoo! developer interview (video), Metroid Prime 3: Corruption’s director Mark Pacini talks about the game’s development, and confirms that “other titles will be created” by Retro Studios now.

To quote him: “I’m sure that there will be other titles created but as far as Retro Studios is concerned, we’re taking a break for a little bit. We started with the core ideas of the game … but we did not receive the information about the Wii controller until well into development. So we got a big surprise, of, hey, this is what we’re going to do for the next console. Many things had to be refactored, but actually many things fell right into place. The Wii remote enables us to do things that we hadn’t previously done in other Metroid games.”

It’ll be interesting to see if their next Nintendo (Wii?) game from Retro is the before Metroid Prime 1 cancelled GameCube RPG Raven Blade or something entirely new? — Via Evilavatar

Update June 17th, 2009: Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto has said in an interview that “With regards to the Prime series, if the team at Retro comes up with an idea that does bring a sequel to the series to fruition, I by all means encourage them to do that. But I’m not directly involved with the Prime games. In terms of the Metroid series stories that I’ve told, the games that I’ve been involved in, I started with the NES Metroid and took it through Fusion.”

Nintendo designer Mr. Sakamoto continued to say that right now he’s focused on bridging the gap between the events of Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, and that any further continuation of the Metroid story would have to wait until he’s finished working with Tecmo on Metroid: Other M. To quote: “One of my goals is to present Samus as an appealing human character, and that involves explaining a little bit about what happened in her past as well as the characters that influenced her. The story [of Metroid: Other M] will play a big part.” — Read the full interview at Gamelife.

Update August 17th, 2009: In the below video interview a creator at Retro ask to the screen “Do you want to see Dark Samus or Phazon again?” After which the Nintendo of Japan creator says “It’s up to the fans,” while laughing. I think what fans want is one or both, whatever it takes to get Metroid Prime 4!

Here’s the in-depth “Developer’s Voice” feature with the people of Retro Studio and Nintendo talking about Metroid Prime Trilogy and beyond.

Update August 26th, 2009: IGN was given a tour of Retro Studios. During the below behind-the-scenes look, president and CEO Michael Kelbaugh said: “I think Retro will always be associated with the Metroid Prime franchise, and who knows, maybe we’ll do another one someday.” The team bosses mention that their current non-Metroid project will refresh their development team after working on the Metroid Prime Trilogy for so many years.