Is whatever Retro Studios has been making for the last five years dead for good?

[Black_Red]

There's no fucking way Nintendo risked rebooting Metroid Prime 4 only to hand it to Retro Studios if they've had 5 straight years of nothing but failure.

A new Retro game is E3 material. If anything, it's weird that they unveiled Astral Chain on some random direct. Guess it's a combination of its August release date and E3 already being packed as hell.

Starlink's ship racing isn't SFGP. SFGP was confirmed by Eurogamer and it was described by some as a visual spectacle (which Starlink is anything but). Not only that, I also severely doubt that Starlink's ship racing had anything to do with the silence surrounding SFGP. Whether or not Starlink itself existed at all (let alone its ship racing mode), SFGP is E3 material.

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I dont think its so weird, sadly the first half of the year doesnt look so hot with Fire emblem delay, but now we know that at leas until august we should have:

Jan: NSMBU+L
Feb:
Mar: Yoshi
Apr:
May:
Jun: Mario Maker 2
Jul: Fire Emblem
Aug: Astral Chain

With Animal crossing, Pokemon, Luigi's Mansion and Link's awakening closing the year unless something is delayed.


the bad part is, yoshi doesnt look good (tried the demo) and buying NSMBU and then 5 months later buying Mario Maker 2 is weird.

 

[antonio]

Maybe it began as Donkey Kong 3D open world/racing game and it was concluded that it wasn`t suited for DK so they had to change everything to Star Fox?

I have high hopes that Retro is making a final DKC game with mostly 2D gameplay to complete their trilogy. This game could feature K. Rool and Kremlings. Due to success of Tropical Freeze on Switch and return of K. Rool to the gaming world, this all makes sense to me.

 

[justiceiro]

Nintendo never ever throw their work away. Labo came from cancelled myamoto prototypes. Mother 3 came from the cancelled mother 64. We will see that work again, in some form or another.

 

[Neoxon]

I say wait until E3 before we jump to any conclusions.

 

[Servbot24]

Nintendo never ever throw their work away. Labo came from cancelled myamoto prototypes. Mother 3 came from the cancelled mother 64. We will see that work again, in some form or another.

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They throw tons of work away that you never hear about, as all game companies do.

 

[cucholix]

I just wanted Metroid Prime Trilogy... I'm sure another dev team can do the port, just give us the game ;___;

 

[Rogue Agent]

Well I'm now on team Star Fox GP never existed and therefore all the leaks that came out last year are fake.

Which means Retro has clearly been working on Startropics 3 this entire time.

Think about it. What two environments do they have experience in? Tropical locales (DKCR series) and space/alien locales (Metroid Prime series). Put them together: Star Tropics.

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Perhaps insiders confused Star Fox with Star Tropics.

 

[justiceiro]

They throw tons of work away that you never hear about, as all game companies do.

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They rerelease a game 20 years after was complete. The cut dungeons of windwaker where used in later titles. I didn't said all work, only that they always Savage something.

What other company salvage as many work as Nintendo?

 

[Magic Mushroom]

I think SF GP is real and will be revealed later.

 

[JDSN]

I think theyve been in asset-making hell.

 

[808s & Villainy]

I'm pretty sure insiders were full of shit when it came to Star Fox racing and simply saw the Ubisoft stuff, although why they associated that with Retro is beyond me

 

[Bill Rizer]

Well, if I really can't ever get Donkey Kong Racing, at least let me have Star Fox Racing.

 

[Mr_F_Snowman]

I'm pretty sure insiders were full of shit when it came to Star Fox racing and simply saw the Ubisoft stuff, although why they associated that with Retro is beyond me

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The insiders simply got this one wrong. There is no way Nintendo is stupid enough to have Starfox racing be a mode in a crossover game and then a full fledged release in an entirely different game. Someone clearly got them mixed up. Combined with the other fact that Nintendo are also not stupid enough to hand over development of a troubled game (MP4) to Retro if they had also been incapable of developing a game in the last 5 years and we are basically back to square one - having no clue what Retro have been doing the last 5 years.

Which is exiting

 

[Tamazoid]

If it is star fox grand prix it will be shown at E3, so they have the time to explain it to people. They must be putting something out this year, otherwise how the hell have they convinced Nintendo to bank roll them for 5 years! Either that or they are the ones makes Mario Kart Tour, as they did some of the remake courses in 8.

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Nintendo aren't really in the habit of closing studios/layoffs (The closest is when they have restructured studios like Brownie Brown which became 1up Studios, pivoting to purely a studio that supports the development of other studios). Plus while they haven't released an original game for 5 years, Retro have aided in the development of a number of games.
I guess my point is even if there have been problems with Retro over the past 5 years, Nintendo would continue to bankroll the studio. I mean they continue to bankroll NST, when they don't seem to be trusted to develop anything outside of the rare Mario vs Donkey Kong game (which no doubt is the type of game that could easily be outsourced to an external studio).

 

[Servbot24]

They rerelease a game 20 years after was complete. The cut dungeons of windwaker where used in later titles. I didn't said all work, only that they always Savage something.

What other company salvage as many work as Nintendo?

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I have no idea. But 99% of their cut content doesn't get used.

 

[justiceiro]

I have no idea. But 99% of their cut content doesn't get used.

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If you are saying must be true then.

 

[Servbot24]

If you are saying must be true then.

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This is how game developments works. There are floods of unused content for every game. It's not me saying it, that's just common knowledge. Once in a while it gets to be reused like in Galaxy 2, but that doesn't mean all cut content would be reused. Otherwise Nintendo would be making 10x as many games.

 

[Blader]

How in the world does a company that hasn't produced any new product in five years continue to generate revenue and stay afloat?

 

[Mandos]

Retro definitely has something to release we just don't know what it is, However every retro game to date has been revealed at e3 so it could be a major fall winter game

 

[Axass]

You are all out of your minds. Several high profile publications and renown leakers have vouched for StarFox GP, there's a logo, the details do not line up, Retro has nothing to do with Ubisoft, we still don't know what they've done for 5 years, and your conclusion is: the racing part of Starlink is in fact what passed for SFGP?

Yeah, I'm waiting for E3.

 

[chrisPjelly]

How in the world does a company that hasn't produced any new product in five years continue to generate revenue and stay afloat?

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I think people forget the amount games Retro assissted with during the 3ds/WiiU generation. It's nothing exciting, but i have to imagine finds them a very valuable asset in their modern development process.

 

[TheFireman]

How in the world does a company that hasn't produced any new product in five years continue to generate revenue and stay afloat?

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They've at least done one game (DKC:TF port). There's very possibly a Metroid Prime Trilogy port already finished by them too.

 

[Deleted member 51691]

Nintendo aren't really in the habit of closing studios/layoffs (The closest is when they have restructured studios like Brownie Brown which became 1up Studios, pivoting to purely a studio that supports the development of other studios). Plus while they haven't released an original game for 5 years, Retro have aided in the development of a number of games.
I guess my point is even if there have been problems with Retro over the past 5 years, Nintendo would continue to bankroll the studio. I mean they continue to bankroll NST, when they don't seem to be trusted to develop anything outside of the rare Mario vs Donkey Kong game (which no doubt is the type of game that could easily be outsourced to an external studio).

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NST was heavily downsized after Project HAMMER, so all they can do now is ports and Mario vs. Donkey Kong.

 

[XaviConcept]

What you're thinking of may never have existed. Maybe they did a bunch of prototypes, settled on a couple for a year, they didnt pan out and started over with a different project or were asked to help with other Nintendo 1st party games.

The narrative that a studio ships a game and starts working on "the next game" as if thats all they do is usually not the way things go, in 5 years maybe they worked on 3 games, or maybe they finally got traction on some new idea that is only 2 years old, maybe its a smaller game that allows them to also get going on Prime 4.

One of my last cancelled projects before returning for EA had a year and a half dev time which, initially, sounded like a dream ... but in reality the project was restarted/rebooted 4 times so the version that finally got cancelled was just about 3 months of work but on paper it was a year and a half long project. This happEns all the time.

I dunno whats up at Retro but I wanted to highlight other non-player based things that are pretty likely as well.

 

[Dyle]

I doubt the Starlink=Star Fox Grand Prix theory because it implies that extra content for Starlink was in development for over a year ahead of time, for dlc that will be released almost 6 months after the main game. My bet is that we'll see something from them, whether it's MPT or not, at either an April direct or E3. Nintendo has been holding their cards close to the chest much more recently so a quick announcement to release window would not surprise me. I'd say it's 50/50 whether or not they have something almost ready to go or if they've kind of just been spinning their wheels/acting as a general support studio since 2014

 

[Tom Nook]

I just don't get secrecy of Retro not releasing anything on what they're working on. A screenshot? Or a quote on twitter?

 

[MaitreWakou]

I just don't get secrecy of Retro not releasing anything on what they're working on. A screenshot? Or a quote on twitter?

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It's Nintendo's decision. No matter if their game is still coming or is canceled, they can't say anything. They're doing games for Nintendo, Retro Studios doesn't even have any PR since they're a Nintendo studio.

 

[decoyplatypus]

I think it's most likely that Retro has worked on a number of projects over the last five years, a few of them made it past the pitch stage, and each of those was ultimately scrapped or rebooted for one reason or another. Maybe there was a Starfox project that made it far enough along for journalists to hear about it. Maybe not. But I don't expect to see anything at E3.

 

[Instro]

Have we had any comment on what they are working on from our usual insiders(Emily, Zell, Imran, etc)? IIRC this rumor started with DasVergeBen, and was picked up by some gaming sites, but I don't recall a lot of the other insiders having any info or take on it. Since then no one has had anything to say about Retro as far as I know.

 

[Huey]

I certainly hope not. I'm extremely happy they're back working on MP but given how incredible the DKC games were, I'd love to see something new from them. I'm not 100% I'd want that thing to be star fox racing... but I imagine they'd be able to make anything great.

 

[Hieroph]

It's such a shame if a talented studio like Retro has been just sitting on their thumbs for 5 years or if they were working on something all that time and then it was thrown away.

 

[Pancakes R Us]

At this rate I have no idea. Retro has been MIA since E3 2013. This e3 will be the sixth missed one if they don't show up.

Outside of the above, I think they may be working on Donkey Kong 64 Returns.

 

[Shoichi]

I think they were working on Starfox GP, decided to scrap the project after development hit a snag. (wasn't there rumors that this happened or something?) Where the leftovers from Starfox GP was handed to the Starlink devs who decided to use Retro's idea to spice up their Switch version (which is the racing we seen at the end of the Direct's trailer).

At the same time Retro was working on doing the DK: Tropical Freeze port as well as working on the MPT remaster (I still believe!!!). Then started working on the MP4 game after showing Nintendo how MPT was coming along and Nintendo not being satisfied with the current development of MP4.

 

[lunanto]

Id like to know the truth someday.

 

[JUNGLEGAMER]

It really annoying because they make great games and this complete silence and lack of development update are driving me nuts

 

[Maximum Spider]

Have any insiders actually commented in?

 

[Skittzo]

Have any insiders actually commented in?

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Jason Scrhreier posted this in another thread, basically saying that he's now no longer confident that Starfox GP is real:

So since I know a lot of you care deeply about this thing, let me make a quick comment. The way I constructed this story was very deliberate, and it was very heavily couched because I wasn't nearly as sure as I usually am when I report on these things. When I have confirmed something firsthand with my own sources who have direct knowledge of information, you'll see me be a lot clearer. (ie: "Sources: Watch Dogs 3 Is Real And Set In London.") When I'm sharing something that I think is true but can't confidently confirm (which is fairly uncommon), you'll see me be a lot more careful with my words, like this:

A piping hot new E3 rumor suggests that Retro Studios, the Nintendo-owned developer behind the Metroid Prime trilogy, is making a Star Fox racing game. These rumors have been floating around gossipy Nintendo fan and writer circles for at least a few weeks now, but they've only gone public today, suggesting that Retro's new game is called Star Fox: Grand Prix.​

​

We've heard the same from a source plugged into goings-on at Nintendo, and we've also heard from two other sources that the Austin, Texas-based Retro had a separate project that went through a rocky development cycle and may in fact be canceled.​

The second part of that statement I am still very confident in. Retro has had a troubled last few years, from what I've heard.

But today I spoke to the person I referred to as "a source plugged into goings-on at Nintendo" in that article and they are no longer confident that Star Fox Grand Prix is real. I won't burn my sources or say anything that could possibly identify them, but it's very, very possible that this is one of those rumors that never had much air in the first place. A lot of Nintendo rumor-mongers talk to each other, a lot of things get lost in translation, and sometimes what appears to be coming from multiple sources might actually be coming from a ring of people sharing information with one another. That's why I try to be very careful when it comes to reporting on Nintendo-related gossip that comes my way. So much of that stuff has turned out to be bunk, even from extremely reputable reporters.

Ultimately, I don't know if Star Fox Grand Prix is real or was ever real. I'm not as interested in that question as I am in the question of how the recent Metroid Prime 4 deal came together (and just what's been happening at Retro over the past few years), but that's a story that has proven difficult to tell. Hopefully one day!

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[Maximum Spider]

Jason Scrhreier posted this in another thread, basically saying that he's now no longer confident that Starfox GP is real:

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Thanks!

 

[Allyougame]

The absence of a "Star Fox Grand Prix" in yesterday's Direct does not necessarily mean it does not exist. Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion 3 were not mentioned at all yesterday, and we didn't know anything about Astral Chain and Tetris 99 less than 30 hours ago.

If "Star Fox Grand Prix" does exist, one can reasonably assume it's not coming out by August or it would have been announced. As was the case with Super Mario Maker 2 (June), Fire Emblem: Three Houses (July 26th), and Astral Chain (August 30th).

One potential thing to keep in mind: Ubisoft's Starlink is getting its Nintendo-publicized Spring update featuring the rest of the Star Fox crew in April, SEGA's Team Sonic Racing is scheduled for May 21st , and Activision's Crash Team Racing is dated for June 21st. E3 starts Tuesday, June 11th. Those are three of Nintendo's biggest publishing partners with marketable games that drive in a similar track, so to speak. Is that a bonus factor in Nintendo waiting until E3 2019, which they were going to do anyways because of development/scheduling? Who knows.

I don't think waiting until E3 2019 is the issue. September through November already set with some release date combination of Animal Crossing, Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and Pokemon Gen 8, among other potential titles, would seem to be the bigger issue. Release "Star Fox Grand Prix" in December? Sit on it until late January or February 2020, just as they did with Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze with the Wii U? Does it exist?

Along with porting DKC: Tropical Freeze to the Switch, did Retro Studios also handle the development of the Switch remaster of Metroid Prime Trilogy, as they did with the Wii version? Was that a boon in them putting together the rumored demo that helped them earn the Metroid Prime 4 assignment? Have their projects been cancelled, and they've been delivering uncredited (thus far) support work and the port projects?

Let's just wait and see.

Admittedly, I thought the ideas of "Star Fox Grand Prix" sounded rad and I'd love to see another arcade racer from Nintendo - especially from Retro Studios. But internet rumors mean little.

 

[Megatron]

E3. I believe.

 

[Deleted member 9971]

They were just on the backseat after tropical freeze can happen sometimes with dev studios.

 

[Kinsei]

Hopefully not. If they haven't been able to get a project off the ground for the past 5 years then it doesn't inspire much confidence in Metroid Prime 4.

 

[Speely]

E3. I believe.

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Yes.

 

[metalslimer]

Yeah it seems strange to me that Nintendo would give a studio a game that has been in development hell to a studio in development hell. The majority of people who worked on the prime games are gone so it's not like they bring a lot of experience either

I'm inclined to believe that something still exists and will be released either this year or next

 

[Lupin]

.

 

[Cup O' Tea?]

I find it kind of baffling that a tightly run company like Nintendo has had one of their best first party studios essentially silent for the last 5 years. I wonder what they've been working on.

 

[Issen]

I claim absolutely zero insider knowledge but I'm reasonably confident SFGP is real because I tend to trust Eurogamer's reports (though just like Pokemon Stars it's still a possibility that it's not/won't end up being a thing).

If this game is announced at E3 I'm gonna be laughing real hard at this massive wave of meltdowns that happened just because Retro's 5 year project was not announced on some random direct 4 months ahead of E3.

 

[StormEagle]

None of the options in the poll fit. I believe we will see Retros third Donkey Cong Country game revealed at E3. Star Fox racing is a fever dream. Well, at least that is what I want and reality better deliver.