Since Metroid Prime 4 was announced at E3 2017, we’ve heard very little about the first-person science-fiction adventure. Despite Nintendo saying the game was “progressing well” last summer, it appears that is no longer the case, as development has been restarted at Retro Studios.
In a video published on Nintendo’s YouTube channel, senior managing executive officer Shinya Takahashi explained that Metroid Prime 4‘s quality had not been living up to the company’s high expectations thus far.
“Nintendo always strives for the highest quality in our games and in the development phase we challenge ourselves and confront whether the game is living up to that quality on a daily basis,” Takahashi added. “If we’re not satisfied with the quality, we aren’t able to deliver it to our customers with confidence and the game will not live up to our fans expectations.”
Because of this, essentially all work on Metroid Prime 4 has been scrapped, and the development process is starting over with Retro Studios now at the helm. Retro Studios previously developed the three original Metroid Prime games, and has also worked on both recent Donkey Kong Country titles.
“By collaborating and developing with Retro Studios, we believe we can make this game something that will meet our fans’ expectations,” Takahashi said.
He also stressed that it would be “a long road” before Nintendo is ready to update fans on the game’s status again, so we are unlikely to hear anything new at E3 this year.
With this delay, it’s unlikely Metroid Prime 4 will release for several more years. The last game in the series to release was Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS in 2017. A side-scrolling game reminiscent of the original titles — and based on Metroid II — it has not been ported to the Switch yet.
Back in 2018, it was reported that Bandai Namco was the primary developer behind Metroid Prime 4, and that former Star Wars 1313 developers from LucasArts Singapore would be working on the project. Nintendo had an extensive relationship with Bandai Namco already, with the company assisting in developing multiple Super Smash Bros. games, including the acclaimed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for Switch.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.