Could this be it, the big break we're looking for in the wall of silence surrounding Metroid Wii U? Nintendolife has discovered that Retro Studios is going on a hiring spree and they've done a great analysis of what the new jobs could mean. And, of course, the question that immediately jumps to mind is: Is Retro working on Metroid Wii U?

Metroid Wii U

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Metroid Prime HD: Retro Has Started Its New Project. Is It Metroid Wii U?

First off, all hat tips to Nintendolife for thinking of looking into Retro's new hires. It's a pretty classic way to get a good sense of what a company is working on, although they obviously don't have that many specifics. Anyway, they're hiring a few jobs right now: A gameplay engineer, an AI engineer, some tools engineers, and an artist.

I also took a look deeper into what the company has been up to, via the company's employees' LinkedIn pages. And they are all very tight-lipped on the company's unannounced project or projects (there's definitely at least one). But I also noticed that they've hired a whole stack of concept artists, technical artists, and UI designers lately-like, since May or June. That doesn't really tell us too much about what they're working on, but it strongly suggests that they're gearing up on that project right about now-and that it's still in the early stages.

As for the platform for the new Retro Studios game... the listings for the same jobs on Gamasutra categorize most of the jobs as for "3DS / Wii U," one of them also inexplicably including Wii, which is presumably a typographic error, since Nintendo officially no longer is making anything for the platform. Whether that means "3DS or Wii U" or "3DS and Wii U" is anybody's guess.

Retro Studios' Next Game

The only real clue I could find in any of the descriptions that might hint to Metroid Wii U, which we know is coming eventually, is that a few of the jobs require previous AAA game experience. That strongly suggests what we pretty much knew already, that Retro's next title is a AAA game. And that suggests to me that it's not another DKC-that's a first-rate game, but AAA games don't retail for less than $60-or Mario Kart 7, which Retro helped out on. It suggests it's something much bigger.

Will that be Metroid Wii U? Of course it's hard to say right now. The point is, Retro Studios is hiring. It's ramping up for a major new project and, whatever that is, it's reason enough to be excited.