Metroid Prime 2's cut feature would have been groundbreaking

Key insights

Metroid Prime 2 featured nearly playable space pirates in multiplayer with unique abilities and designs.
The Space Pirates would have had abilities like wall-grabbing and cannon weapons, but the idea wasn't fully developed yet.
Retro Studios is currently focused on developing Metroid Prime 4 for 2025, with little information available about the game.

Former Retro Studios developers Jack Mathews and Zoid Kirsch have revealed a cut feature from Metroid Prime 2: Echoeswhere the team played around with the idea of including the legendary space pirates as playable characters in the game's multiplayer mode. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is the second entry in the sub-series developed by Retro Studios following the critical and commercial success of the first Metroid Prime. Prime 2 was first released on the GameCube in 2004 and was ported to the Wii as part of the game Metroid Prime Trilogy Collection in 2009.

During the single player campaign of Metroid Prime 2 is quite similar to the first game, but also offers a number of new gameplay features, such as traveling to Link to the past-similar light and dark worlds, new items and a multiplayer mode. In multiplayer mode, up to four players can compete in either Deathmatch mode, where the aim is to get the most kills, or collect coins in Bounty mode. Players can also obtain various upgrades, such as the Light and Dark Rays, to gain an advantage over their opponents. All four players play as recolored Samuses, but Retro Studios had originally considered the Space Pirates as potential playable characters as well.

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Another Metroid title deserves the Samus Returns treatment before the release of Prime 4: Beyond

The wait for Metroid Prime 4 has been a long one, but Nintendo should find room to release another Metroid remake before it hits shelves.

In an interview with the Kiwi Talkz podcast (timestamp 48:37), Jack Mathews and Zoid Kirsch discussed how Prime 2 almost playable space pirates. Traditional, MetroidThe villainous Space Pirates faction typically consists of enemies that the player encounters and shoots down, and they are the most common enemy type in the franchise. In the Prime In the sub-series, they have a similar build to Samus and would have been perfect as potential playable characters. However, the idea did not make it far into development.

Space pirates were once considered for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes' multiplayer mode

Jack Mathews explained some of the ideas the developers had when working on Space Pirates Metroid Prime 2is a multiplayer mode in which they would have fundamentally different abilities than Samus herself. Some of the prototypical ideas for the pirates included giving them the ability to cling to walls and unique cannon arm models, but they didn't get very far with the concept. Therefore, the multiplayer mode of Metroid Prime 2 features four different colored Samuses wearing their traditional Varia suit instead.

Retro Studios is currently working intensively on development Metroid Prime 4: Beyondwhich is scheduled to launch sometime in 2025. Not much about it Prime 4 is known, except that his main antagonist Sylux and the Space Pirates are involved again. There were also rumors about a Metroid Prime 2: Echoes HD remaster for the Switch, although this has yet to be officially confirmed by Retro Studios or Nintendo.