A Peek at the Metroid Games That Never Came To Be
Last Updated on December 9, 2022
A quick look at the Metroid games that never made it.
Game development is an arduous process, and it’s common for even great ideas to never leave the planning room floor. According to a superb video by DidYouKnowGaming, even the famous Metroid series has had its fair share of cancelled projects. It’s not hard to see why Nintendo cancelled them, but it does make you wonder what could have been!
As a huge fan of Final Fantasy Tactics, the thought of a Metroid game in the same turn-based style sounds incredible! It’s even more amazing that this exact thing was pitched to Nintendo shortly after Metroid Prime 3 was released. Needless to say, the pitch wasn’t enough to sway Nintendo but in the future? Who knows!
Another title that never saw the light of day was Metroid 64, and this one seems to be a victim of poor timing. In the mid-’90s, the PlayStation and the N64 allowed developers to take their games into the 3rd dimension. For a while, 2D games fell out of the spotlight, and as Metroid 64 was pushed to be one of those, it’s no surprise it never got developed.Â
DidYouKnowGaming points out that even though 2D masterpieces like Castlevania: SOTN are looked back on fondly nowadays, they sold poorly at the time.
The most baffling title covered by DidYouKnowGaming is undoubtedly ‘Project Valkyrie’. Project Valkyrie was going to focus on four player Deathmatches on the Nintendo DS. As the project evolved, The console changed from the DS to the Nintendo Wii U. For better or worse; we never got a PvP Metroid game. Instead, we got Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a fourpPlayer PvE experience on the Nintendo 3DS. Considering the calibre of most Metroid games, reviews from 2016 are a mixed bag, but as reviewers’ experiences are so wildly different, they make for a wild read.
If you want to learn more, I highly recommend watching DidYouKnowGaming’s full video on the topic.
Anthony is a freelance writer and has worked in the industry for four years. He’s furiously competitive and is always looking for the next big multiplayer hit. Anthony is a passionate PS1 collector and firmly believes in playing his retro games rather than letting them collect dust on a shelf. He also loves speedrunning and always looks forward to the next GDQ and ESA events.
