The fan-made Metroid Prime 2D project 15 years in the making, has finally released its first playable demo.
Titled simply “Prime 2D”, the fan project seeks to recreate the Nintendo GameCube classic in full 2D like its forebears that released on the NES and Super NES. Developed by Team SCU since 2004, the project is looking to honor all the elements from the Retro Studios-developed 3D entry in the series, within their own game engine.
Team SCU is using their aforementioned game engine and have layered on Prime-specific mechanics into the classic Super Metroid style, like the scanning visor – which lets players scan things in the environment to learn more about the series’ lore and history.
“We have a long history, starting way back in April of 2004,” said Team SCU on their official forums. “We joined Samus.Co.Uk 7 when it was created, followed when it moved, left when it died, cycled through 5 different main programmers, and have had hundreds of volunteers making thousands of resources. But that is the past, and we are the now.”
They added, “Prime 2D has always been focused as a fan project for the joy of creating and learning – this has been exemplified by many prior contributors using skills learned from this project as a way to break into the games industry. As the project has matured, so have we as creators, raising the bar for the quality expected of a game.”
The long development time to produce a playable demo came from their own passion as fans of the series, wanting to produce something truly exceptional like a legitimate Metroid game.
“This shift has resulted in realigned priorities, many of which are demonstrated in this video,” Team SCU said. “Rather than the pixel-perfect translation envisioned by our predecessors, we are taking a more targeted approach as a commentary on the shift from classic 2D to modern 3D gaming.
They noted that instead of “copying the source material exactly” they are focused on taking its “core concepts, translating those, and then implementing them in a logical 2D solution.”
“By doing this we allow ourselves to focus on building a good game first and foremost, and then using that as a base on which to create a familiar experience, rather than constraining ourselves to trying to implement 3D ideas in 2D space,” Team SCU added.
Here’s the latest trailer for the fan project, albeit from a few years ago:
The latest game in the Metroid Prime series, Metroid Prime 4, was announced way back in 2017 and we haven’t heard or seen much about it since – not even a trailer or screenshots. Instead, its development has seemingly been rife with issues, and has hit multiple roadblocks.
Metroid Prime 4 was originally in development with a newly formed team in Japan, with development being restarted two years later in 2019 and handed off to the original Metroid Prime developer (not to be confused with the Nintendo’s own internal teams), Retro Studios. The developer is presumably still working on the title, as they’re still hiring staff for its development.
