Metroid Prime 1-3: A Visual Retrospective Is Essential For Nintendo Fans
Finally uncovered.
Despite Mario and Zelda always taking the limelight, Metroid is one of Nintendo’s most influential franchises. Super Metroid’s design helped define generations of games and create the Metroidvania genre, and Metroid Prime managed to be just as innovative decades later by brilliantly fusing Metroid's meticulous exploration with first-person shooters.
Despite Metroid Prime’s influence, we still know shockingly little about how the series was developed, in large part because Nintendo is infamously tight-lipped. And that’s why it’s been such a joy to comb over Nintendo’s new book, Metroid Prime 1–3: A Visual Retrospective. This expansive tome is a fascinating look at the development of the trilogy and Metroid Prime Remastered, giving us the most info we’ve ever had on how Nintendo and Retro Studios worked in tandem. In short, it’s an essential piece for anyone interested in Metroid’s history.
Made in collaboration with Piggyback, the Metroid Prime Visual Retrospective is one of the most impressive game art books I’ve ever seen. It’s loaded with concept art, storyboards, and even maps of whole games, but it’s also inundated with design insights from Retro Studios and series producer Kensuke Tanabe.
The retrospective’s cover design is simple, but elegant.
Many of these details are new. Did you know Retro considered making a Donkey Kong game after Metroid Prime 2? Or that Metroid Prime only came around because Shigeru Miyamoto suggested Retro’s unrelated first-person shooter project get turned into a Metroid game?
It’s actually astounding to consider how little we knew about the creation of Metroid Prime, given its influence and popularity. Snippets from this book will be spread around for months, if not years, but there are a few highlights I need to mention now.
First and foremost is the actual creation of the Prime series, where Retro notes it “Took artistic and design inspiration from previous Metroid games, primarily Super Metroid. To explore and inform the new visuals, we drew inspiration from sci-fi and horror movies of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, as well as industrial buildings, refineries, and the natural world.”
While Retro was allowed to handle most of the reimagining of Metroid from 2D to 3D, it was Nintendo that suggested the game’s visor system, where the user interface elements are baked into Samus’ visor. On the flip side, Retro suggested introducing the Power Suit as a way to embrace the series’ tradition of losing and regaining Samus’ abilities.
The Visual Retrospective walks through each game in sequence, including the 2023 release of Metroid Prime Remastered.
One moment Tanabe highlights is the ability to roll around on halfpipes as a Morph Ball. Here’s an excerpt from Tanabe on page 17:
“Initially, Nintendo was skeptical, questioning whether it would actually be fun. However, Retro responded ‘Please try it out first before deciding,’ and submitted a prototype. I vividly remember that when we finally tested it, it turned out to be incredibly satisfying and engaging.”
The art book is filled with dozens of little anecdotes like this, and a major part of how these games came together appears to have been through a constant, almost excruciating, back and forth between Retro and Nintendo. There was some friction in the process, like Retro pushing the idea of Meta Ridley returning later in the game during a morning meeting that ended when the sun was setting.
We also get a peek at Tanabe’s development process. Page 102 shows the entirety of Metroid Prime 2 laid out in a 2D map that Tanabe posted on the wall, saying he was “inspired” to keep track of the game through analog means by Miyamoto.
There are full 2D maps of every game.
For Metroid Prime 3, Tanabe details some early concepts, including “Themes such as bounty hinting and a reward system for acquiring items, with a mission-based structure aimed at shortening the overall game completion time.” Tanabe notes that these ideas stemmed from internal discussions at Retro focused on addressing Metroid Prime 2’s lackluster sales and making the series more appealing to a broad range of players. That direction was ultimately turned down because it didn’t match Nintendo’s spirit of innovation, with Tanabe saying:
“However, those proposals were based on existing mechanisms already used in other games, and thus we pointed out that they could not serve as the foundation of Metroid Prime 3. As a result, they were not adopted.”
The most interesting tidbit I’ve dug up is the creation of Dark Samus, and why Metroid Prime became a trilogy in the first place. On page 57, there’s a wide array of concept art and storyboards for Dark Samus, a character that was originally part of Metroid Prime’s secret ending, before playing a major role later in the trilogy. But Dark Samus wasn’t intended to be a major part of the series.
“When the art director first showed me the storyboard for the 100% ending of Metroid Prime, he explained, ‘This is a scene where Metroid Prime absorbs the material from Samus’s cells and regenerates.’ Naturally, the idea rose: let’s use this character to create a sequel,” Tanabe noted. “Around that time, I recall that some movies specifically announced as a trilogy from the outset were a hot topic, so I told the team, ‘Why not make it into a trilogy?” It was at that moment we decided to make the Metroid Prime series a trilogy and set on a path revolving around Samus and Phazon. Without this ending, the direction of the Metroid Prime series might have been entirely different.”
The book contains a good bit of never-before-seen concept art.
All of these notes are just small snippets of what’s found in the Visual Retrospective. In 16 years of covering video games, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a look behind the curtain of a Nintendo game that’s this comprehensive. It helps that the book itself is well-made, allowing the art to really pop off the page.
If you’re even remotely interested in the Metroid franchise, I cannot recommend picking this book up enough, especially with Metroid Prime 4 coming out in December. If you’re going to play it anyway, you should be armed with as much context and history as possible.
