One of the most influential and successful games of Nintendo's history is Metroid Prime. It remains a beloved game by the gaming community, and helped successfully translate the franchise into a 3D environment. Depending on the fan, many consider the first game to be the best. Due to its age, there are some fans who think Metroid Prime deserves a remaster. This is the thought process behind Project MPR, a remaster of the original game by fan team AetherLabs.
Project MPR is a fanmade mod that started in 2018 with one developer until it evolved into an entire team that looked into giving a graphical remaster of Metroid Prime. This ended up with a complete overhaul in the process of designing the remastered graphics. According to the website, this involves using a custom Dolphin Emulator that used a variety of tools that would utilize custom handmade HD textures. With the last few years of this development, the team was able to show the first trailer of this remaster mod.
This trailer of showed off the opening stage of Metroid Prime, Frigate Orpheon. It alone shows immense amount of work that went into giving this game a shiny new look. This can be seen on Samus' Power Suit, as well as the level itself, showing off the new textures and lighting systems that were integrated. This includes remastering the game into 4K, along with other aesthetic touches like new material maps and particle effects. This is no small feat, as the first level alone has over 6000 textures according to AetherLabs.
Project MPR isn't looking to just be a normal graphical remaster however, as several other features are being included. One of which is the use of PrimeHack, a tool that allows for native mouse and keyboard and traditional dual-stick controls. This mod also includes an adjustable field of view, along with giving the player tons of different customization options for the UI. The mod also promises to be restoring features that were disabled for the Metroid Prime Trilogy re-release on the Wii, along with adding new ones.
Many fans were blown away by this trailer, seeing the amount of work that went into remastering the game. Some fans did express their worry considering that Nintendo has shut down big fan made Metroid projects in the past. One fan commented that a mod of the game like this would have less risk, but the possibility still is there. Regardless, the AetherTeam hopes to release the first phase of this Metroid Prime mod sometime in early January 2022.
Source: Aether Labs Online