Confirmed: No Online for Metroid Prime 3

Originally Posted by gamepro

Michael Kelbaugh, President and CEO of Retro Studios, gives us a final update on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, as well as one bit of bad news: online multiplay will not appear.

17 New Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Screens
GamePro: Will Metroid Prime 3 have any online modes?

Michael Kelbeugh:: No. It's something we talked about early on, but we only have so many resources. We opted to devote those resources to making a better single-player experience.

What are the biggest differences between Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and the previous two Metroid Prime games?

It's got to be the controls. The integration of the controls with the Wii controller is a phenomenal difference, and a dramatic improvement in the experience as a whole.

How difficult was it to figure out how the controls would work?

When we first saw the Wii controller, our game director Mark Pacini was really concerned about being able to take all the controls we used in Metroid Primes 1 and 2 - because, really, you use every single button in those games - and morph them into the Wii controller. So we spent a tremendous amount of time making that as seamless and as intuitive as possible. And I think we accomplished that. I think we did a really good job , so that you can pick the Remote and Nunchuk up and not be intimidated.

The game has three different control schemes, which are essentially three different sensitivity settings. What was the thinking behind including all three instead of just doing one?

The whole idea behind the controls in Corruption is to make them accessible to any Wii player, whether it's your 8-year-old daughter or your 80-year-old grandmother. So having the different settings gives us the flexibility to accomplish that, and also giving the player the opportunity to modify their control settings as they get further into the game helped us reach that goal as well.

Did you guys look at control schemes for other first-person shooters for the Wii, and if so, did any of them have an effect, either positively or negatively, on what you guys did?

No. As a rule, we don't look at other games and make any comparisons. We focused on what we think are the best controls for our games and for Metroid Prime fans. We actually started working on this game's controls before any Wii games came out and before we had exposure to any Wii games.

What about in more general terms? Are there any other first-person shooters that you think are big influences on this game?

I just can't say that there are. We really don't develop like that, so it's hard to say...

Because to me, there are a certain things that are very Halo-esque about it--like the music.

Yeah. Well, I don't mean "yeah" in that I agree with you, but I understand where you're coming from.

One of the primary design objectives was to give this game a more epic feel. You mentioned the audio. Two, three years ago when we started talking about Metroid Prime 3 with Mr. [Kenji] Yamamoto, who's done the audio for all the Metroid games since the inception; we explained that we wanted the audio to convey a more epic feel. And you'll notice that it certainly has a much bigger feel to it. There are a lot of horns and big, dramatic sweeps. Mr. Yamamoto really put a lot into creating a much broader, more grandiose feel.

One of other new things I noticed was when you go into the scan visual mode, you can see Samus' eyes. Was that something that causes any debate amongst the team?

Well, we've always held Samus close to the heart, but that reflection is probably the most extensive view of Samus without her suit on that you're going to see in a Prime situation. But there was no discussion about doing that, it was just one of those things where someone on the team suggested, "Wouldn't it be cool if....?" And since it was relatively painless, we did it.

This game was supposed to be out earlier. What prompted the delay, and what did the extra time allow you?

Well, there was never a set date for the game's release, but there was a target date. Mr. [Satoru] Iwata [President of Nintendo] challenged us last fall to make this equal to, if not exceeding, the Zelda experience. And he said he would support it by giving us more time. It was, "Here's the bar. What is it going to take to reach it?" And the obvious answer was, "Well, we're going to need more time." And he agreed.

So it's all your fault....

Ha! Well, you'll reap the rewards, I'll guarantee.

As for what we added, that's kind of a tough question. I can't say, from a geometry standpoint, that we added this room or we added that boss. It wasn't a matter of "We have to add this element." We had the foundation of the game, it was more the classic Nintendo scenario of refinements and polish. So what we now have is an extremely polished, extremely tight experience.

Will Metroid Prime 3 have any online modes?

No. It's something we talked about early on, but we only have so many resources. We opted to devote those resources to making a better single-player experience.

Are there any unique challenges to being an American development studio working on a game for a Japanese company?

Well, let me refine that question a little bit. It should be: Are there any unique challenges to being a Western developer working in the Nintendo development environment? Because, really, that is where the challenge is. The challenge is applying Western methodologies in development and having those fit with Nintendo's expectations as they relate to quality. Which is very, very refreshing because it's never a situation where it's date-driven, it's always quality-driven. It's never, "Okay, regardless of the game's condition, it's coming out August 30th."

But on the flipside of that, we work for Nintendo, we are Nintendo, and the expectations for our games are intense. So meeting the quality standards for a Nintendo I.P. [intellectual property] is exceptionally challenging.

Do you think that they hired you guys, originally, to do these games because first-person shooters are kind of a Western thing? Because as I understand it, Japanese gamers are not as enamored of first-person shooters as Westerners are.

Yeah, first-person shooters or first-person adventure games don't do well at all in Japan.

Do the Metroid Prime games do well over there?

Not necessarily. It has nothing to do with the I.P. or the franchise, it's just that this style of game isn't popular. It sells well, as far as the genre is concerned, but it's like how traditional Japanese simulation games aren't that popular over here. So it would only make sense to have a Western developer work on a first-person game.

Corruption has been referred to as the third part of a trilogy, which is something that annoys me. How can the third part of anything be called the third part of a trilogy...until they do a fourth one. But is this the end of a trilogy, and when you started working on it, did you approach it as the end of a larger story?

We knew from the get-go that Corruption was the end of a trilogy. We knew from a design sense and the story that we were putting the button on the Prime franchise for the time being.

But is the thinking that, if this does well, you're do more of these games but you'll start a whole new story? Maybe call it Metroid Primo or something?

I don't think that's a bad idea at all. But as far as we're concerned, we approached this as the last of three. It's time to put the breaks on the Prime situation. But, of course, Metroid is a very strong I.P., there's no way they're going to put it to bed.

If Nintendo came to you and said, "We really liked the Prime series, and we want to a boxed set of all three games, but we'd need you to adapt the first two games to the Wii-mote." How long would it take to adapt those old games to the Wii-mote?

Oh, you're talking about code that's six, seven years old, so I can't answer that without diving into it.

Though for the Tokyo Game Show, a couple years ago, we did take Metroid Prime 2 code and adapt it to the Wii controller, and that took a couple months. But to really do it right, and really incorporate all the features of MP1 and MP2, it would take a while. It's just hard to really answer that without diving into it.

It's a great idea, though.

Well, go ahead and do it. And have them packaged in a Samus helmet.

Originally Posted by MysticGohan

^ its already been confermed that SSBB is online.

Originally Posted by Joe

But Im sure they're focusing on SSBB online...

Originally Posted by Squall7

What is the deal with this "it has to be online" crap. It's a feature that isn't new, nor standard.

It's not created to compete with Halo