Nintendo Just Stopped This Metroid Project In Its Tracks
While most "Metroid" fans have been eagerly waiting for the upcoming "Metroid Dread," one dedicated group of fans was working on re-imagining "Metroid Prime" in 2D. However, Nintendo showed its shady side, and the project was forcibly shut down.
"Prime 2D," the fan-made game in question, was on the chopping block after a demo for the game was released. It quickly gathered attention as people began to praise the game, with over 100,000 people viewing the original announcement thread on the game's website. However, "Prime 2D" began to receive too much attention. With major sites like PC Gamer and Polygon covering the game, Nintendo was bound to catch on. Unfortunately, Nintendo sometimes has a habit of attacking its own fans when it comes to any non-official content that uses Nintendo-owned characters or game themes, and that looks to be what happened to "Prime 2D."
The "Prime 2D" creators, Team SCU, posted on its Discord server that the game had been shut down (via Omega Metroid Podcast). The team also updated its website, saying that the removal was due to "legal reasons." The Discord announcement was much more detailed, and it gave some insight into the situation that fans had been worried about since the demo was released.
Prime 2D developers knew this would happen eventually
According to the Discord announcement provided by Omega Metroid Podcast, the developers were asked "by a certain games-related company," i.e. Nintendo, to "discontinue work on 'Prime 2D.'" As the developers pointed out, they knew that Nintendo would eventually shut them down. However, they also said that they don't regret releasing the game while it was still a demo. Some fans were upset by the news, even turning on Team SCU. One Twitter user wrote that "this is why they say don't ever ... talk about or demo your Nintendo fan game. Just work on it in silence and release when done."
Team SCU addressed these issues, specifically saying that the demo release was "the right choice for our team" and that "we were committed to seeing the project to completion, but we are also finite beings." While the situation wasn't ideal, Team SCU mentioned that it is "currently in dialogue with [Nintendo] to determine how best to proceed for both parties."
Another Twitter user was hopeful that Nintendo only went after "Prime 2D" because there's a remake coming for the Switch. While there's not any news on this, the user pointed out that another fan-made "Metroid" game, "Another Metroid 2 Remake," was taken down by Nintendo right before "Metroid: Samus Returns" was announced.
While there's no official news about a "Metroid" remake in the works, it's definitely not impossible, especially with "Metroid Dread" right around the corner.