Retro Studios on the making Metroid Prime Remastered, wanting to offer “best in class” graphics on Nintendo Switch

Retro Studios has spoken about the making of Metroid Prime Remastered, including challenges the team encountered along the way. This comes from the brand new retrospective book that just released for the series.

On the topic of graphics, Retro wanted to be “authentic to the original game,” while “elevating the visuals to be best in class on Nintendo Switch.” The team evaluated just about all aspects, including color palettes, forms, and atmosphere. By all accounts, Metroid Prime Remastered has some of the best visuals on Nintendo Switch. 

Just like other development teams, Retro was dealing with the COVID pandemic which impacted development – but also “a couple of freak ice storms that left us without power and water for days.” There were other challenges as well, such as having to “descend into the depths of a twenty- year-old database, exploring digital corridors to find what we needed” and the fact that “a lot of the artists had backgrounds in more stylized games”.

Below are Retro’s full comments on the making of Metroid Prime Remastered:

When Metroid Prime was released in 2002 (in North America), it didn’t just bring Samus into a 3D world, it expanded the Metroid universe and added innovations that changed first-person games forever. Twenty years later, many of us who started as fans were given the tremendous responsibility of preserving the game’s legacy in Metroid Prime Remastered. The impact of the original on us as artists and visual storytellers inspired us as we carved out the visual philosophy.

When considering how to remaster this game, making something that was authentic to the original game was tantamount to elevating the visuals to be best in class on Nintendo Switch. “It should look the way Metroid Prime looks in your memories,” was our mantra. This philosophy extended to everything from the environments and characters to Samus’s HUD and Visors. We evaluated the color palettes, forms, and atmosphere and tried to faithfully re-create what we felt was the original intention. Spending a lot of time reviewing the original game and its aesthetic choices only furthered the team’s appreciation for it and motivated us to capture and enhance the visuals the best we could.

We also had to consider how video-game development had changed since 2002. As 3D renderers for games became more complex and HD TVs became standard, it became common to have entire departments dedicated to real-time effects and lighting. To leverage the then- new Switch and our team’s capabilities, we deliberately focused on some key points while capturing the essence of the original graphics. We made sure the focal points, shapes, and player path were clearly defined. We also strove to distinguish the background, middle ground, and foreground from one another to push depth in the scene. New visual effects and lighting advancements, like volumetric fog and baked global illumination, went a long way toward hitting the above targets.

The studio faced more than its share of challenges during the development of Metroid Prime Remastered. Some were uncontrollable forces like the global COVID pandemic that forced us home for two years and a couple of freak ice storms that left us without power and water for days. Internally, the more difficult parts of the project often involved a form of archeology. Hunting like Samus herself, we had to descend into the depths of a twenty- year-old database, exploring digital corridors to find what we needed. Moreover, a lot of the artists had backgrounds in more stylized games, so the learning curve for capturing this atmospheric, gritty, sci-fi world was steep. It was a huge technical and artistic effort for us to bring the visuals to a more modern era, and ultimately, we became much stronger artists because of it.

Metroid Prime 1–3: A Visual Retrospective is out now and you can grab a copy here. On the topic of Metroid Prime Remastered, you can read about how Retro originally wanted new cutscenes for the game here.

Nintendo Everything is a participant in the Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop affiliate programs. The website may receive a partial commission through orders placed with these retailers.