work of the Impact Crater|alt=A series of drawings of a cave complex filled with root-like structures. On the upper right corner are drawings of larva-like creatures. According to producer
Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo did not develop a
Metroid game for the
Nintendo 64 as the company "couldn't come out with any concrete ideas".
Metroid co-creator
Yoshio Sakamoto said he could not imagine how the
Nintendo 64 controller could be used to control Samus. Nintendo approached another company to make
Metroid for Nintendo 64, but the offer was declined, supposedly because the developers thought they could not equal
Super Metroid.
Metroid Prime was a collaboration between
Nintendo EAD and
R&D1 and the American company
Retro Studios. Retro was created in 1998 by an alliance between Nintendo and
Iguana Entertainment founder
Jeff Spangenberg. The studio would create games for the forthcoming
GameCube targeted at a mature demographic. After establishing its offices in
Austin, Texas in 1999, Retro worked on four GameCube projects. When Miyamoto visited Retro in 2000, he suggested a new
Metroid game after seeing their prototype
first-person shooter engine. In 2000 and early 2001, four games in development at Retro were canceled, including an RPG,
Raven Blade, leaving
Prime the only game in development. During the last nine months of development, Retro's staff
worked 80- to 100-hour weeks to reach Nintendo's deadline. Concept artist
Android Jones, a lifelong fan of the series whose work included Samus's Varia Suit and most of the art in the Scan Visor, would sleep in the office and resume working when he woke up. Nintendo created the music, Retro handled art and engineering, and both teams worked on the overall design. The Japanese crew, which included producers Miyamoto, Kensuke Tanabe, Kenji Miki, and designer and
Metroid co-creator Sakamoto, communicated with Retro through e-mails, telephone conferences and personal gatherings. The game was planned to use a third-person perspective, but after Miyamoto intervened this was changed to first-person perspective and almost everything already developed was scrapped. The change was prompted by camera problems experienced by
Rare, which was developing the Nintendo 64 game
Jet Force Gemini. According to director
Mark Pacini, Miyamoto believed that "shooting in third person was not very intuitive"; Pacini also said that exploration is easier using first-person. Pacini said that after picking that perspective, the crew decided not to make a traditional first-person shooter; instead, they had to break down the stereotypes of what a first-person game is in order to make a fun
Metroid game. Senior designer Mike Wikan said that the focus on exploration led the team to spend time making the platform jumping "approachable to the player", and to ensure the gameplay had "shooting [as] a very important, though secondary, consideration". Retro developed the storyline under the supervision of Yoshio Sakamoto, who verified that the ideas were consistent with the earlier games. The team considered implementing the Speed Booster power-up from
Super Metroid but concluded it would not work well because of the first-person perspective and the limitations imposed by the scale of game's environment. In November of the same year, Retro Studios confirmed its involvement with the game in the "job application" part of its website. In February 2001, the game was confirmed by Nintendo, which also announced that because of its emphasis on exploration and despite the first-person perspective,
Metroid Prime would be a first-person adventure rather than a first-person shooter.
Audio Kenji Yamamoto, assisted by Kouichi Kyuma, composed the music for
Prime. The soundtrack contains
arrangements of tracks from previous games in the series because Yamamoto wanted to satisfy old
Metroid fans. The initial Tallon Overworld theme is a reinterpretation of
Metroids Brinstar theme, the music heard in Magmoor Caverns is a new version of the music from
Super Metroids Lower Norfair area, and the music heard during the fight with Meta Ridley is a fast-paced reimagining of the Ridley boss music first featured in
Super Metroid, which has reappeared in most
Metroid games since. Early in development, the English electronic duo
Autechre were asked by Retro Studios to compose the soundtrack, but this was halted by Nintendo.
Tommy Tallarico Studios initially provided sound effects, but Miyamoto deemed them not good enough for an extended presentation at
Space World 2001. The game supports
Dolby Pro Logic II setups and can be played in
surround sound. ==Release==