My first thought when Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was revealed in this week’s Nintendo Direct was “I for sure thought I’d be dead before this game ever saw the light of day”. I mean I still might, but the odds are looking better than ever that I’ll still be around when the Metroid Prime series breaks its 18-year hiatus next year. I was initially delighted (if a little morbid), but my second thought was “Where the hell are those Metroid Prime 2 and 3 remakes?” Forgive me for biting the hand that feeds here, but I’m a gamer. My entitlement knows no bounds.
It’s hard to pick through all the rumors, leaks, and good ol’ fashioned cope surrounding the Metroid Prime series. With so little news about new releases over the last two decades, there’s been a lot of whispers from various uncles at Nintendo filling in the gaps. The surprise release of Metroid Prime Remastered last year gave a lot of clout to some of the long-time Metroid leakers who had been promising a re-release of the trilogy ahead of 4’s debut. But it’s a year later and we now have a release window for Beyond, but still no mention of remasters for Echoes and Corruption.
I’m convinced that remasters for Metroid Prime 2 and 3 exist. Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb has proven to be a reliable game industry insider, andhe’s been reporting on the development of the Prime remakes for years. Unfortunately, as is often the case in the leaker business, his timelines aren’t always accurate. He last claimed Metroid Prime 2 remastered was coming soon, andthat was last July.
After this week’s Nintendo Direct, where Beyond was showcased without any mention of Echoes or Corruption re-releases, I’m left bewildered. We’re more than a year past the release of Metroid Prime Remastered and (likely) less than a year away from Metroid Prime 4. People will want to replay the entire series before Beyond comes out, especially those who just discovered Metroid Prime for the first time with the remaster. That means the other two remasters need to come out this year, but we just had a Nintendo Direct showing all the big games coming this year, so where are they?
It could be the case that Nintendo wants to shadow-drop the other remasters just as it did for the first one last year. With all the Metroid Prime 4 hyped this seemed like the week to do it, but maybe they’re just not ready yet. For a long time the rumor has been that the remastered versions of Echoes and Corruption won’t be as big of an update as the first one was, but maybe Metroid Prime Remastered was successful enough that Nintendo and Retro were willing to invest more to bring the next two up to standard. We have heard that these remasters have just been sitting on a shelf ready to go for a long time, but maybe it’s a good sign that they weren’t released this week.
The question remains, if not now, when? This was the first Nintendo Direct of the year and each year since 2021 we’ve seen a second Nintendo Direct in September. The next one will almost certainly focus on the successor to the Switch and its new games, which is expected to launch in the first half of next year, so it would be strange to include a couple of Metroid Prime remaster shadow drops in there. I’m also taking for granted that they’ll both launch at the same time, but given how close we are to Beyond, I don’t know if there’s any way Nintendo staggers the releases at this point.
I’ve been eager to replay the entire trilogy since Metroid Prime Remastered launch last year (and every day before that too, but more so since then) and the Beyond reveal ratcheted my Metroid hype up to the next level. Maybe I’m greedy for wanting a gameplay reveal and a remaster release at the same time, but we’re now firmly in the revisiting window for the series. This is the time to catch up on Metroid Prime, and there’s enough evidence pointing to the existence of remasters for 2 and 3 that I believe Nintendo has them ready to go at a moment’s notice. I just don’t know what it’s waiting for at this point.
