Nintendo comments on controversial decision to feature Galactic Federation troopers in Metroid Prime 4

Nintendo has spoken about why it decided to feature Galactic Federation troopers in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which has seen mixed feedback.

If you read previews for Metroid Prime 4 that were published before launch, you may have seen some controversy surrounding Myles MacKenzie. Myles is one of a few Galactic Federation members that accompanies Samus at different points of the journey. Reger Tokabi, Ezra Duke, Nora Armstrong, and VUE-995 are featured throughout as well.

While NPCs have appeared in previous Metroid games, isolation and exploring alone is a big part of the series. Some weren’t happy that the Galactic Federation members are featured so prominently, though Myles definitely received the brunt of the criticism initially.

In the most recent issue of Famitsu, Nintendo was asked about the intention behind working with the Galactic Federation in the game. The company said in response, as translated by Nintendo Everything:

“When we design games, often we will start with deciding what kind of themes we want players to experience. Normally when players finish a game, they push the A button without any uncertainty, but with Metroid Prime 4 we wanted to make them hesitate and feel conflicted. In order to do that we also have the Galactic Federation soldiers being moved to Planet Viewros (this will make sense with the ending).

That came first, and then the next step was how the soldiers would act in the game in order for it to feel realistic. Rather than deciding the individual elements to include, we instead decided on the NPC AI and the way they act in cutscenes etc. and from that we would then have the player feel a certain way. For example, rather than thinking or deciding about including a specific escort mission, or thinking about how to pull in casual gamers, we want the player to naturally feel, ‘This character is a real coward, and can’t fight, so I must protect them.’”

In the same interview, we got to hear about why Metroid Prime 4 wasn’t made to be an open-world title and how the project came to be. Also, here’s where the game fits into the series timeline.

Translation provided by Simon Griffin and SatsumaFS on behalf of Nintendo Everything.