Despite Nintendo's lack of updates, Metroid Prime 4 remains one of the Switch platform's most anticipated releases. Delays have seemingly pushed Nintendo's plans for the continuation of the Metroid Prime franchise back longer than anyone expected. With no Metroid Prime 4 coming in the relatively near future, some fans have been hoping that the original Metroid Prime trilogy might come to the Switch. However, according to one of the trilogy's original designers, that seems unlikely.
Michael Wikan, a senior game designer for Retro Studios between 2000 and 2011, recently commented on the possibility of the Metroid Prime trilogy coming to the Nintendo Switch. He responded to a meme on Facebook about playing the trilogy again on Nintendo Wii, with another responder hoping it'd come to Switch. According to Wikan, porting the Metroid Prime Trilogy to Switch would require a "herculean effort" and he's skeptical it will happen.
Specifically, Wikan references Metroid Prime 3's motion controls as prohibitive to porting to a new platform. He even goes into detail, saying that Metroid Prime 3 is "scripted very specifically using volumetric triggers to detect the motion in precise manners to do specific switches." Further, he says that bosses are "tuned to take into account the ease of gestural aiming." In other words, motion controls are built into Metroid Prime 3's design and they can't easily be removed or altered without, as Wikan says, a herculean effort.
Wikan does say that both the original Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 would probably be easier to port. They were already ported from GameCube to Wii for the Metroid Prime Trilogy compilation, after all. It's just Metroid Prime 3, which was a Wii and motion control exclusive, that would be challenging to a degree of unbelievability to port.
While Wikan's comments would be understandably disheartening to fans of Metroid Prime hoping for the trilogy to be ported to Switch, there is a point worth noting. Wikan does say it would take a herculean effort to port Metroid Prime 3 to Switch, but he doesn't say that it'd be impossible. If Nintendo was willing to do the work, then it's possible to remake that aspect of the game for the Nintendo Switch.
What's especially odd about Wikan's comments, however, is that there are already many different rumors and leaks indicating that a Metroid Prime Trilogy has already been made for Nintendo Switch. Some rumors even say that the port has been finished for a year or years, but Nintendo is waiting to release it until Metroid Prime 4 is closer to launch. That wouldn't make Wikan wrong, of course. But it might make clear just how much work would have to go into bringing the Metroid Prime Trilogy to the Switch.
Metroid Prime 4 is currently in development for the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Facebook