Metroid Prime 2D reimagines Retro Studios’ brilliant first-person adventure as one of the franchise’s earlier 2D side-scrollers. A team of fans have been working on the idea on-and-off since April 2004 using original artwork, music and sounds inspired by the original. “Instead of copying the source material exactly, we are instead focused on taking the core concepts, translating those, and then implementing them in a logical 2D solution,” the team wrote in a new blog post. “By doing this we allow ourselves to focus on building a good game first and foremost, and then using that as a base on which to create a familiar experience, rather than constraining ourselves to trying to implement 3D ideas in 2D space.” Metroid is 35 years old later this year - though Nintendo is yet to say whether it will release any Metroid games of its own to celebrate. Back in 2019, Nintendo rebooted development on the highly-anticipated Metroid Prime 4 and said that Retro Studios would now take on the project, starting over from scratch. The emergence of a Metroid Prime 2D demo brings back memories of the famous Metroid 2 fan remake AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake), which was released in 2016 for the series’ 30th anniversary - and was promptly lawyered by Nintendo within 24 hours. Project creator Milton Guasti went on to be hired by Ori and the Blind Forest developer Moon Studios, though only after his work on AM2R was scrubbed from the internet. Here’s hoping Metroid Prime 2D survives a little longer.
