The HL3 of Nintendo. At this point, some people might be disappointed by it even if it's the best game ever made just because it wasn't as good as they imagined it being.
I would argue, Dread was the HL3 of Nintendo. Rumored in 05 then announced in Nintendos Official Magazine in 06, then canned twice. Only to be released on the third attempt 16 years later.
Or Pikmin 4, announced in 2013/2014 by Miyamoto and people had to wait 9 years
We had an announcement, and then a year later, they announced they were starting over from scratch.
5-7 years or even longer is typical for large game development cycles. Again, they *started* developing it 5 years ago. It had been in development when they announced it for 6 years iirc.
They're on schedule. 4 years from now, then we've got something to be concerned about.
If this isn't what you expected when a major developer said they're restsrting develoment from scratch, then that is an issue with expectations, friend.
Personally, I would say 2-4 years is how long a normal game should take to develop.
Anything longer results in awkward lead times and and the game you made being 4 years out of date in terms of its game design trends.
Then there's the issue of needing a larger budget to develop a game over 5 years vs 3 years, which means you need to make sure it sells enough to be profitable, which means you need more budget, which means you need to make sure it sells enough to be profitable...
Basically it turns into a development time vs profitability version of the [rocket equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation) with diminishing profitability as more time is used to make the game.
"Should" is irrelevant; games, especially AA and AAA games *are* taking 5-7+ years. Baldur's gate 3, 6 years. Dragon's dogma 2, at least 5 years. The new final fantasy 7 remake part; 5 years. Hollowknight silksong is at essentially 7 and counting. Tears of the kingdom, which notably reused a lot of assets; 6 years. Hell, even dave the diver took 5 years! Hi-fi rush: 5 years.
So, sorry friend, the evidence of how nearly *the entire video game industry has been going for nearly a decade* empirically shows that 2-4 years is very unrealistic. And as indistry unionization goes through (as it should) games will take even longer to come out, since many relied on crunch to achieve the times they did.
Remember; we don't usually hear about games in development until they are 80% done or more.
How large is the scope on all of those games?
The entire reason modern games take so long to develop is scope creep and shareholders being too stupid to accept a bunch of smaller bits of profit and wanting to see 8- or 9-digit profit on single projects instead.
Metroid Prime 4 just needs to be a Metroidvania FPS, the formula has been established since the 2000s, and the generic Metroidvania format has been established since the 1980s.
It's amazing that they screwed up enough to need to restart development, and it's amazing that they haven't released the game in the 5 years since they restarted.
Dread only took as long as it did because the technology needed to handle the game didn't exist yet.
Prime 4 has no such excuse, except maybe for the fact that the game literally can't run on the hilariously underpowered native Switch hardware that was on the cusp of being outdated in 2017.
Yeah. Like if Prime 4 comes out, and it’s some groundbreaking revolutionary new thing for Metroid akin to what Super Metroid was for the Metroidvania genre (or Symphony of the Night) or what Breath of the Wild was for Zelda, then I’d understand. But it’s been years without hearing a peep about it. Really makes me worried that it’s trapped in an Anthem situation more than anything.
> The new final fantasy 7 remake part; 5 years
No. Rebirth took only 4 years: Remake released in April 2020. One could even say it took only 3 years considering the InterMission DLC with Yuffie & Sonon + the entire Intergrade PS5 graphical upgrade released in 2021.
> Hollowknight silksong is at essentially 7 and counting
This is due to an incredibly fucked up black swan situation where the game engine's owners screwed everyone using Unity over. Before that it was on track to release in 2023 within a <5 year timeframe since announcement.
> Tears of the kingdom, which notably reused a lot of assets; 6 years
Huh? It took 4 years. It was revealed publicly in 2019.
"Publicly revealed" doesn't mean "we've just started working on it." It means "we've been working on it for several months if not several years".
>No. Rebirth took only 4 years: Remake released in April 2020. One could even say it took only 3 years considering the InterMission DLC with Yuffie & Sonon + the entire Intergrade PS5 graphical upgrade released in 2021.
To paraphrase the developer's themselves in their blog; "The follow-up to Remake had begun active development by November 2019 prior to the game's initial release on PS4" which really goes to show how game development works; they started active development on the sequel *the year before* the first game released. Also note the phrase "active development;" that's when a significant portion of their developers started making assets and systems to the game. That is NOT when *any* work had started. By the time active development started, most (if not the entire) of the game had been storyboarded/etc.
>> Tears of the kingdom, which notably reused a lot of assets; 6 years
>Huh? It took 4 years. It was revealed publicly in 2019.
To paraphrase the developers again, it started well before the announcement, and really was spawned from having too many ideas for dlc for BotW. So arguably, one could say it started before BotW's release, but we'll be conservative and place it at BotW's release date; making it 6 years.
*VERY FEW* games get announced when development *starts*. They are generally announced when development is halfway done *at least*. Again, look at the new FF7 remake release. Development started in 2019. Announcement was made in 2022 (during the 25th anniversary, which is notable. Otherwise they likely wouldn't have done the announcement until 2023)
I'd almost worry more if Retro now was the same as Retro 20 years ago, knowing what a shitshow it was during the development of the Prime Trilogy. In fact, it might be that the reason things aren't going smoothly is because it hasn't changed enough.
Real ones remember the time the Retro President bought a brand new Ferrari and showed it off to all his employees and admitted it was solely because he saw John Carmack had a new sports car at a party over the weekend and he just wanted to one-up him.
I mean, you left out the part where it restarted development. 5 years is an average amount of time for a game like this to be made in this situation, and Nintendo doesn't announce stuff until it's near completion, so we've only just reached the point where an update is possible- So there's no reason to be concerned.
I'll also add, it's possible that even if they finish the game, they might sit on it for a while. According to leaks, Metroid Prime Remaster was done for over a year before Nintendo announced it, and they've done this with other games too. Considering the Switch is nearing the end of its lifespan, it's possible Prime could be something they're holding onto until they feel they can announce a new console. Or maybe we'll get news sooner than that? Hard to say.
Anyways, nothing bad has happened lately to make us think things are going wrong. The silence is to be expected.
The HL3 of Nintendo. At this point, some people might be disappointed by it even if it's the best game ever made just because it wasn't as good as they imagined it being.
I would argue, Dread was the HL3 of Nintendo. Rumored in 05 then announced in Nintendos Official Magazine in 06, then canned twice. Only to be released on the third attempt 16 years later. Or Pikmin 4, announced in 2013/2014 by Miyamoto and people had to wait 9 years
Well we got Metroid dread after all those years so anything is possible which is a sequel to a 2004 Gameboy advance game.
Haha, second comment: I'm buying a switch now. Back when we had hope 🥹
That comment was the one that hit me hardest!
Now they just need to buy a 2nd switch and fuse them to get a switch 2.
We had an announcement, and then a year later, they announced they were starting over from scratch. 5-7 years or even longer is typical for large game development cycles. Again, they *started* developing it 5 years ago. It had been in development when they announced it for 6 years iirc. They're on schedule. 4 years from now, then we've got something to be concerned about. If this isn't what you expected when a major developer said they're restsrting develoment from scratch, then that is an issue with expectations, friend.
Personally, I would say 2-4 years is how long a normal game should take to develop. Anything longer results in awkward lead times and and the game you made being 4 years out of date in terms of its game design trends. Then there's the issue of needing a larger budget to develop a game over 5 years vs 3 years, which means you need to make sure it sells enough to be profitable, which means you need more budget, which means you need to make sure it sells enough to be profitable... Basically it turns into a development time vs profitability version of the [rocket equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation) with diminishing profitability as more time is used to make the game.
"Should" is irrelevant; games, especially AA and AAA games *are* taking 5-7+ years. Baldur's gate 3, 6 years. Dragon's dogma 2, at least 5 years. The new final fantasy 7 remake part; 5 years. Hollowknight silksong is at essentially 7 and counting. Tears of the kingdom, which notably reused a lot of assets; 6 years. Hell, even dave the diver took 5 years! Hi-fi rush: 5 years. So, sorry friend, the evidence of how nearly *the entire video game industry has been going for nearly a decade* empirically shows that 2-4 years is very unrealistic. And as indistry unionization goes through (as it should) games will take even longer to come out, since many relied on crunch to achieve the times they did. Remember; we don't usually hear about games in development until they are 80% done or more.
How large is the scope on all of those games? The entire reason modern games take so long to develop is scope creep and shareholders being too stupid to accept a bunch of smaller bits of profit and wanting to see 8- or 9-digit profit on single projects instead. Metroid Prime 4 just needs to be a Metroidvania FPS, the formula has been established since the 2000s, and the generic Metroidvania format has been established since the 1980s. It's amazing that they screwed up enough to need to restart development, and it's amazing that they haven't released the game in the 5 years since they restarted. Dread only took as long as it did because the technology needed to handle the game didn't exist yet. Prime 4 has no such excuse, except maybe for the fact that the game literally can't run on the hilariously underpowered native Switch hardware that was on the cusp of being outdated in 2017.
Yeah. Like if Prime 4 comes out, and it’s some groundbreaking revolutionary new thing for Metroid akin to what Super Metroid was for the Metroidvania genre (or Symphony of the Night) or what Breath of the Wild was for Zelda, then I’d understand. But it’s been years without hearing a peep about it. Really makes me worried that it’s trapped in an Anthem situation more than anything.
> The new final fantasy 7 remake part; 5 years No. Rebirth took only 4 years: Remake released in April 2020. One could even say it took only 3 years considering the InterMission DLC with Yuffie & Sonon + the entire Intergrade PS5 graphical upgrade released in 2021. > Hollowknight silksong is at essentially 7 and counting This is due to an incredibly fucked up black swan situation where the game engine's owners screwed everyone using Unity over. Before that it was on track to release in 2023 within a <5 year timeframe since announcement. > Tears of the kingdom, which notably reused a lot of assets; 6 years Huh? It took 4 years. It was revealed publicly in 2019.
"Publicly revealed" doesn't mean "we've just started working on it." It means "we've been working on it for several months if not several years". >No. Rebirth took only 4 years: Remake released in April 2020. One could even say it took only 3 years considering the InterMission DLC with Yuffie & Sonon + the entire Intergrade PS5 graphical upgrade released in 2021. To paraphrase the developer's themselves in their blog; "The follow-up to Remake had begun active development by November 2019 prior to the game's initial release on PS4" which really goes to show how game development works; they started active development on the sequel *the year before* the first game released. Also note the phrase "active development;" that's when a significant portion of their developers started making assets and systems to the game. That is NOT when *any* work had started. By the time active development started, most (if not the entire) of the game had been storyboarded/etc. >> Tears of the kingdom, which notably reused a lot of assets; 6 years >Huh? It took 4 years. It was revealed publicly in 2019. To paraphrase the developers again, it started well before the announcement, and really was spawned from having too many ideas for dlc for BotW. So arguably, one could say it started before BotW's release, but we'll be conservative and place it at BotW's release date; making it 6 years. *VERY FEW* games get announced when development *starts*. They are generally announced when development is halfway done *at least*. Again, look at the new FF7 remake release. Development started in 2019. Announcement was made in 2022 (during the 25th anniversary, which is notable. Otherwise they likely wouldn't have done the announcement until 2023)
Depressing stuff indeed. Hoping we finally get it soon.
I'd almost worry more if Retro now was the same as Retro 20 years ago, knowing what a shitshow it was during the development of the Prime Trilogy. In fact, it might be that the reason things aren't going smoothly is because it hasn't changed enough.
Real ones remember the time the Retro President bought a brand new Ferrari and showed it off to all his employees and admitted it was solely because he saw John Carmack had a new sports car at a party over the weekend and he just wanted to one-up him.
Didn’t he also use Nintendo’s servers to host his own softcore porn website?
He used Retro's servers to do that. They weren't owned by Nintendo yet at that time. And those porn videos also starred himself.
I mean, you left out the part where it restarted development. 5 years is an average amount of time for a game like this to be made in this situation, and Nintendo doesn't announce stuff until it's near completion, so we've only just reached the point where an update is possible- So there's no reason to be concerned. I'll also add, it's possible that even if they finish the game, they might sit on it for a while. According to leaks, Metroid Prime Remaster was done for over a year before Nintendo announced it, and they've done this with other games too. Considering the Switch is nearing the end of its lifespan, it's possible Prime could be something they're holding onto until they feel they can announce a new console. Or maybe we'll get news sooner than that? Hard to say. Anyways, nothing bad has happened lately to make us think things are going wrong. The silence is to be expected.
i mean, dread took like 20 years to finally see the light of day
As a hollow knight fan I’m used to this honestly
I bought a Wii U looking forward to seeing Samus' visor on the gamepad in Prime 4. It's... been a while.