Metroid Prime 4 Developer Explains the Game’s Most Divisive Element

December 26, 2025, 2:20pm

A developer behind Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has opened up about its decision regarding the game’s most divisive aspect. Following its launch earlier this month, fans have generally been torn on the latest Metroid Prime game. While many found that Beyond looked gorgeous and featured some well-designed locales, the game’s open-world hub, in which Samus can ride around on a motorcycle-style vehicle, was more or less seen as a major drawback. Now, thanks to a new explanation, we know why this open-world area was included in the game to begin with.

Videos by ComicBook.com

Speaking in a new issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu, an unnamed developer who worked on Metroid Prime 4 opened up about why it chose to make the experience partially open-world. It was explained that when Retro Studios inherited the project in 2019, it was told to adhere to the game’s original vision, which centered around an open-world element. This was based on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild becoming a big hit for Nintendo, which led to more requests from fans to see a Metroid game in this style.

As the years continued to pass, rather than deviating a bit from these decisions in the wake of new gaming trends coming about, Retro Studios essentially had to keep pushing forward with the choices it had previously made. The final product led to Metroid Prime 4’s approach to an open-world feeling lackluster, which is something that the developer behind the game seems to be aware of.

“At the start of the project, perhaps due to the influence of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, we saw a lot of comments on the internet saying ‘we want to play an open-world Metroid’,” said the statement via translation. “However, Metroid’s core element of ‘increasing the amount of explorable areas by unlocking powers’ is not very compatible with the ‘freedom to go anywhere from the beginning’ of open worlds. Thus we thought to design a limited area that could be freely explored, and have that be a hub that could connect to other areas. Then we thought that if one could move around on the bike in a satisfying way in that area, it could be a segment that mitigates the tension from exploration, and paces the whole game.”

“In the end, the game took much longer than expected to finish, and we realized that players’ impressions toward open-world games had changed,” the write-up continued. “That being said, development had already been reset once before (when we started again from scratch with Retro Studios) so backtracking development again was out of the question, and we resolved to move forward with our original vision. During this time, shooting games and action games went through evolutions, with an increase in game speed in particular, but taking in those changes would have made it difficult to construct the tempo of an adventure game, so we actively chose to not take them into account. Therefore, I think this game is pretty much divorced from the changing of times.”

This Is Good News for Metroid Prime 5

While it’s saddening to see that those behind Metroid Prime 4 felt like they couldn’t adapt the game to what players would want by the time it release, what has been said bodes well for a potential Metroid Prime 5. The biggest thing that seems to have hindered Metroid Prime 4 is simply that it was in development for a prolonged period to where Nintendo felt the need to finally get the game out rather than continue delaying it further. If work on a new Metroid Prime game were to begin soon, Retro would seemingly be able to be more adaptable and create an entry that combines the best of Metroid with modern, popular game design ideas.