The latest Nintendo Direct continued to deprive us of any news about the upcoming Nintendo NX , launching in March 2017—when is Nintendo going to breathe a peep about this thing, anyway?—but it’s high time to get excited for a pretty unusual event: What’s likely to be a strong set of launch games debuting with the console in March. Flagship games in the spring! That’s a rarity. One that’s likely to be among them, at least sometime in the Nintendo NX launch window: Metroid NX.
Metroid NX Rumors: Nintendo Returns To Samus
Nintendo hasn’t forgotten about Metroid. Whatever you think of the recent release of Metroid Prime: Federation Force, it shows us Nintendo hasn’t given up on its property—a very low seller in Japan—just yet. In fact, we have plenty of reasons to believe the next game in the series is right around the corner.
Retro Studios, the developer of the Metroid Prime series, has been working on an unannounced triple-A game project for over two and a half years, ever since Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze came out. We don’t know many details, but based on who the company has hired, it seems like a Metroid-style first-person game. And we know that Shigeru Miyamoto wants to have more 3D Metroid… and wants to have Retro make it. It’s hardly conclusive proof, but it’s a reasonably convincing case that Retro is working on a new Metroid or Metroid Prime game.
If so, it’s highly likely to come out during the Nintendo NX’s launch window—especially since the game was originally expected to show up during the Wii U era. It’s been in development for years—and Nintendo knows that it needs a strong NX launch lineup, both for the game’s initial release and for its first holiday season at the end of 2017.
Retro’s games tend to be few and far between, but considering the studio has now been silent for so long, we can hope that Metroid NX isn’t that far away. With any luck, we’ll get it by the end of 2017—and a new Samus Aran adventure is the perfect holiday release, the perfect flagship game to follow Breath of the Wild. Here’s hoping.
