GameCube classics from Retro Studios, Metroid Prime, gets a fan-made 2D remake called Prime 2D. The effort that has been going on since 2004 and calling Prime 2Dis led by a group called Team SCU. While screenshots of the game were released as part of an April Fool’s joke, according to reality, the demo is actually real a forum post by the makers.
The remake is the result of many years of love. In 2017 the Team behind Metroid Prime 2D shared“While public progress has stagnated for the past 5 years, a tremendous amount of basic work has actually been done privately.” Now the following can finally see what the team is up to.
Metroid Prime Fans largely remember how it translated a 2D franchise into a 3D first-person shooter. Prime 2D will try the opposite and create the GameCube shooter from scratch as a side scroller, according to a contribution from the developer. Instead of creating it from scratch, the team focuses on “taking the core concepts, translating them, and then implementing them in a logical 2D solution”.
For what we’ve seen, the demo looks stunning. It features meticulously detailed pixel art as well as reinterpreted chiptune-esque music themes based on the original score by Metroid Prime. It also brings back features from the original game like the Scan Visor, which examines the surroundings and shows players all kinds of details about building the world in a new 2D interpretation.
Metroid fans have long searched for a new release, official or otherwise, to no avail. In 2017, Nintendo announced Metroid Prime 4 for Nintendo Switch. However, Nintendo delayed the game in early 2019 when the game’s development progress did not reach Nintendo’s standards for a sequel to Metroid.
As for fan-made releases like this one, the future doesn’t look so bright. Fans released AM2R: Another Metroid 2 Remake, a remake of Metroid 2: Return of SamusHowever, just a day later, Nintendo’s attorneys filed a copyright claim and effectively closed AM2R Low.
So there are a lot of people to look forward to Prime 2D (over 14,000 people have already downloaded it) it may not take long to finish the project.
