What Happened to Metroid 64?

Why was there never a Metroid series installment on the N64? It seems that every Nintendo system from the NES to the Wii received at least one Metroid title, but the N64 is curiously missing from that list.

On this website and on our YouTube channel we usually focus on cut content from classic Nintendo games, but we also like to cover Japan-exclusive content, cancelled games, and even games that were considered, but for whatever reason never got made. Well, in a 2010 interview with GamesTM (a website that longer exists), Super Metroid’s director Yoshio Sakamoto explained the reasons why Metroid 64 was never developed:

“I was actually thinking about the possibility of making a Metroid game for N64 but I felt that I shouldn’t be the one making the game. When I held the N64 controller in my hands I just couldn’t imagine how it could be used to move Samus around. So for me it was just too early to personally make a 3D Metroid … Nintendo at that time approached another company and asked them if they would make an N64 version of Metroid and their response was that no, they could not. They turned it down, saying that unfortunately they didn’t have the confidence to create an N64 Metroid game that could compare favorably with Super Metroid. That’s something I take as a compliment to what we achieved with Super Metroid.”

Metroid 64 could have been 2D

In short, he didn’t feel he had what it took to make a 3D Metroid, and couldn’t comprehend how to make the N64 controller work in his favor. Apparently he felt pressure to make the jump into 3D in the same way that Mario and Zelda had on the N64, though I don’t think series fans would have faulted him for playing it safe with a 2D game akin to the PS1’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which today is still considered one of the greatest games of all time.

As an aside, longtime Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi departed from Konami not too long ago, and recently released a game that I personally really enjoyed, called Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, a spiritual successor to the classic Castlevania games on the NES. And in 2019 Igarashi will be releasing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night. So if you’ve got a Switch, both these games should definitely be on your radar.

Was Rare that third party?

But back to Metroid. There’s a rumor that seems to have some merit, that Rare was the third-party that Sakamoto said Nintendo approached about developing Metroid 64. But when asked that question directly later in the interview, Sakamoto declined to answer.

There’s another rumor, this one less plausible, that Rare spent some time working on a Metroid project on the N64. But at some point they ended up taking what they’d made for it, and turning it into it Jet Force Gemini, a game that well received, receiving scores of 8.1 and 8.8 from IGN and GameSpot respectively. If you’ve never heard of Jet Force Gemini and you’re a fan of the 64 bit era, it’s definitely worth checking out.

The idea that work on Metroid 64 became Jet Force certainly sounds like it could be true. But without confirmation from any of the parties involved, neither of those claims can be called anything other than rumors. And on this website, we don’t usually like to trade in unsubstantiated gossip. But any which way you cut it, it’s a shame we never ended up getting a Metroid title on the N64. A lost opportunity indeed.

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