Metroid Prime 3 Developer Reveals Scrapped Open World Plans

10/04/2021 04:10 pm EDT

In 2007, Retro Studios released Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Nintendo Wii. The title is often cited as one of the very best on the platform, but it seems that there were plans to make it more ambitious than the game that players are familiar with. In a new interview with Kiwi Talkz, former Retro Studios director of development Bryan Walker revealed that the game almost went with a concept that would have featured a much more open world. Apparently, series director Mark Pacini wanted players to have a less linear experience than in the previous two games, and more freedom to control Samus' ship.

"Mark came forward with an interesting twist in the vision and some of the formulas for Metroid Prime 3, as compared to Metroid Prime 2. We wanted to a greater degree leverage the ship as a playable asset for instance, and we had that to some degree in Prime 3 but Mark was thinking much more ambitiously," said Walker. "There was also an open world, less linear consideration that he was proposing that the team was excited about. We weren't able to prototype a lot of those because those were really big. We did have some ship prototypes early, but the open-world one was much bigger."

Apparently, Pacini came up with an interesting visual aid during development, creating an origami version of Samus' ship that was used during presentations as a "mascot." However, these plans ended up scrapped, possibly due to limitations of the Wii console. Despite this, Walker is quite proud of the game that Retro was able to produce. The game received strong praise from critics, and was beloved by Metroid fans.

"That was I think an area where we may have fallen short of our goals with Prime 3 in not being able to expand the formula a bit. We're still very, very proud of Prime 3, it was a fantastic game, but I would be very interested in seeing what the response was, especially the fan community, to the expanded use of the ship and the more open-world, non-linear experience that we were touching upon with that pitch."

Walker is no longer with Retro Studios, but the developer is currently working on Metroid Prime 4 on the Nintendo Switch. Few details have been revealed about the game so far, but it's possible that some scrapped plans could end up implemented there. For now, fans will just have to wait and see.

Are you a fan of Metroid Prime 3? Would you have liked to have seen an open-world concept for the game? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!

[H/T: Video Games Chronicle]

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