There's an article here:

Former Metroid Prime devs hopes for the series' future

"Imagine cyclopean bosses pursuing you under the skin of a verdant moon across kilometres of terrain, scatting buildings and native life in its wake until you finally lure it to a battlefield..."

And Wikan seems to think that taking a leaf out of Breath of the Wild would work. I'm torn on what direction Prime 4 should go to.

If you look what Nintendo seem to be doing with Mario and Zelda, larger, more sandbox like environments are a thing which tallies up with what Miyamoto said a while back - to paraphase he said that Nintendo where looking at games other people make and trying to put a Nintendo spin on them.

So half of me is thinking open world Metroid. It would be ambitious and more open but would it ruin what makes Metroid Metroid? The Prime games are like a giant puzzlebox you have been dropped into. Like 5 Zelda dungeons meticulously designed and linked together for an already massive environment that is constrained into little puzzleboxes.

So what are your thoughts? What kind of Prime game do you want?

Open world is not the way to go.  There's no reason to be like everyone else.  I want cavernous areas with lots of hidden secrets.  I want Kraid back.

What about 1st vs 3rd person?

Am I the only one who enjoyed Other M?

edgecrusher said:

I actually think Metroid would be more popular in 3rd-person. People like seeing iconic characters on screen.

And there would also be less of a backlash if the controls deviated from the norm in a 3rd person action game, as they did in the Metroid Prime series.

The exploration should be king, and it should be about labyrinthine level design that folds in on itself in interesting ways. The environmental puzzles, atmosphere, and how the game conveys its goals, narrative beats, and all that jazz should be at the mercy of what the player is doing. Not that I wouldn't appreciate some face lifts to the combat, but I don't need Metroid Prime 4 to be an exceptional action game. It's the adventure, the exploration that was satisfying, if the boss fights hold up their end of the bargain the moment to moment combat could maintain the status quo so long as the strengths of the franchise evolved in interesting ways.

Make movement less clunky feeling, as Metroid Prime speed runs aren't nearly as engaging to do as a Super Metroid speedrun. Pretty obvious difference is how much more fluid Samus is in 2d versus how lumbering she can feel in 3d.

Well since they are calling it Prime 4 I would imagine that it's going to continue in the style of gameplay and continue thematically from the previous Prime games. I'm ok with this.

I vaguely remember a plan for Metroid a long time ago, possibly from Retro about making a Metroid game where it would be open world-ish. Where you would walk about in third person and go from planet to planet in Samus' ship.

gamingeek said:

I vaguely remember a plan for Metroid a long time ago, possibly from Retro about making a Metroid game where it would be open world-ish. Where you would walk about in third person and go from planet to planet in Samus' ship.

They called it Metroid Prime 3. But they chopped out the 3rd person.

edgecrusher said:

They called it Metroid Prime 3. But they chopped out the 3rd person.

And the Metroid Prime part.

I watched a vid on youtube of this dude who apparently knew years ago Mercury Steam wanted to develop Metroid games, but until now they had completely denied it.

They had originally wanted to make both a 3ds and a Wii U Metroid but Nintendo supposedly had NO INTEREST AT ALL in Metroid for the Wii U. If that's true, it boggles my mind. Of all their franchises, Metroid would have been perfect for that system and yet they had no interest. You know who else had no interest Nintendo? The public. In your console.