The advent of a new year is always an exciting time. With the whole of 2024 to look forward to, that means a whole lot of time to be excited for what could just be around the corner. It’s a great deal of fun to speculate what could come next in the gaming sphere, given how stacked the year of 2023 was for gaming. Nintendo had a particularly loaded year this time around, with entries from flagship series like Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, and Pikmin. With those heavy-hitters already at bat the year prior, it can be understandable to expect 2024 to be a much quieter affair altogether.
Still, that doesn’t mean the Nintendo fan in me can’t come up with things to be excited about in the coming year. Keep in mind that the following are just my opinion with a healthy dosage of copium. Here’s what I hope to see from Nintendo in 2024.
3. Metroid Prime 4 News
The story of Metroid Prime 4 is a long and trying tale. Being announced back in 2017 during the 2017 Nintendo Direct (and also during the Switch’s heyday), Metroid Prime 4 has since then sunken beneath the waves of development hell. But to say just that would only be telling half the story.
When announced, Metroid Prime 4 was manned by series producer Kensuke Tanabe and developed by Bandai Namco Studios of Singapore and Japan. Fans of the Metroid Prime games will notice that this team does not include Retro Studios, the team responsible for the Prime Trilogy.Prime takes a departure from the series’ side scrolling roots, ditching the 2D platforming plane and elevating the series with the first-person shooter perspective; and this creative distinction occurred by happenstance. The Texas-based studio happened to be developing a third-person shooting adventure game with a female protagonist that caught Shigeru Miyamoto’s attention after all other Retro projects failed to impress him.
Retro Studios would then go through a studio culling, laying off employees and canceling projects to prioritize Metroid Prime. Despite rocky setbacks and the criticism of skeptics, the innovative first-person adventure game would become the best selling Metroid game of all time until Metroid Dread. But Metroid is a series that always seems to face obstacles in the development pipeline. In 2018, Metroid Prime 4 was supposed to be proceeding as planned, at least according to then Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime. Though he prefaced his statements with phrases like “well into development” and “proceeding well,” the lack of footage to show off at that year’s E3 had fans worried.
These concerns would be founded later in 2019 when Nintendo EPD general manager Shinya Takahashi gave the unfortunate news of Metroid Prime 4’s project restart. According to Takahashi, the work Bandai Namco Singapore and Japan had done up to that point was not up to the company’s high standards. Though Takahashi did say that the decision was not made easily, the restart was ultimately called for in the end.
In this dark time, Takahashi assured fans that Metroid Prime’s original developers would be brought back to handle the monumental task. But “brought back” is being used loosely here. The Retro Studios that crafted the original Metroid Prime Trilogy is not the Retro Studios that exists today. The primary Retro talent behind those games, designer/director Mark Pacini and art director Todd Keller, left Retro Studios in 2008 shortly after Metroid Prime 3: Corruption released.
To add onto this, Retro Studios has been on the hunt since 2020 for key developers and talent they could add to their team to aid in the development of Metroid Prime 4. The degree of positions Retro was looking for showed both how far back Metroid Prime 4’s release date was potentially pushed and how serious Retro was in making Prime 4 a reality. Though devs have come and gone through the years of 2020 to 2023, Retro and its staff are hard at work on Metroid Prime 4, backed up with both industry veterans and untested yet passionate developers.
Nintendo remains tightlipped on Metroid Prime 4’s situation and progress, but little clues here and there show that the game could be on its way soon.In 2022, Retro updated their Twitter (or X) banner with concept art of Samus that was brand new. There are also fewer overall Retro job listings, which could indicate that the game currently has all the necessary talent it needs to thrive.
Curiously, the Metroid Prime Trilogy was remastered and released in early 2023 without prior fanfare or announcement. According to a German games rating board and an environmental artist who worked on the remaster at Retro, the remastered trilogy had been done for a while, as far back as 2021, meaning Retro and Nintendo had been sitting on this game for a while.
Whether the remaster release was to pave the way for Prime 4 or another of Nintendo’s inane business decisions, we can’t say for sure, but it shows that Nintendo hasn’t forgotten about the series that made a name for itself in the West. Hopefully 2024 is when Metroid Prime 4 makes its grand return.
2. Fire Emblem Remakes
I’m a huge Fire Emblem fan. The series regained its footing back in 2012 with the immense success of Awakening and secured its place as one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises. That was also around the time I came on board with turn-based strategy series and have never gotten off ever since. Though I have been playing Fire Emblem titles for the last 12 years, in the eyes of series veterans, I am still a bit of a novice. And no, I don’t mean in the sense of HOW I play (Classic/Hard for me, thank you very much. I’m not THAT much of a filthy casual), but WHAT I played.
Awakening was the 13th game in the series, and I’ve played every subsequent game since, including all the spinoffs like Warriors and Tokyo Mirage Sessions. (Heroes is a mainline game by the way. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.) I would love to play all the previous titles, but all of the pre-3DS games are locked behind aging hardware that is no longer accessible through easy means, at least legally. This lack of accessibility also permeates to game design as well, as certain aspects of the older titles have aged like milk such as map design, support mechanics, inventory management, etc.
These revered, classic games are held back by limiting hardware and design, and some are even cordoned off via the language barrier, like the renowned fourth and fifth games in the series.Giving these older games a modern facelift would be an excellent way to breathe life into Fire Emblem’s older catalog and give a way to appeal to both series oldtimers and newcomers alike—and Fire Emblem is no stranger to remakes. Fire Emblem 11, 15, and 12 were remakes of Fire Emblem 1, 3, and 2 respectively.
Also, if rumors are to be believed, Fire Emblem developer Intelligent Systems could potentially be at work on a remake of Fire Emblem 4. This news came around the time the leaks for Fire Emblem Engage surfaced on the internet which were all later confirmed to be true.Intelligent Systems is currently working to deliver a remaster of Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door and I don’t know how that will affect Fire Emblem.But I’ll be damned if I can’t at least dream a bit.
1. New Nintendo Console
Undoubtedly, a new Nintendo console is on most people’s bingo cards for 2024. The Switch has been out since 2017 and it isn’t exactly aging all that gracefully. Performance is weak across the board and newer games can hardly make a splash on Nintendo’s hardware. Just look at how Mortal Kombat 1 looks on this thing. It’s hideous.
Fans have been speculating for years at this point for Nintendo’s next big thing, coming up with innovative names like “the next Switch” or the “Switch Pro”. Though wholly uncreative, what Nintendo fans are cooking isn’t entirely without reason. Nintendo is renowned for their remarkable approach to console development, adopting the “blue ocean” strategy. Coined by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, this method basically means to examine a current given space and establish a market for an experience and/or product that either is unexplored or no other competitor is currently delivering, hence the “blue ocean” moniker.
The Nintendo Switch does exactly that. Though weak in specs, its dual mode of operation makes it an experience that neither Microsoft nor Sony can rival or match. The Switch was so ahead of its time it effectively rendered the DS line of handhelds obsolete (though handheld consoles were already hanging on by a thread). What we want from Nintendo is simple: an improved Switch.
A console that can keep the ergonomic design and function of the Switch while boasting better internal hardware would be a dream come true. The Switch has had a good run over the last seven years and an upgraded version being announced in 2024 will keep the good times rolling for even longer. 2024 is only just getting started and I can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us.
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