Gamers who are fans of Nintendo’s Metroid series were displeased with Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a 3DS game whose E3 trailer has about 7,000 likes and 70,000 dislikes on YouTube at the time of writing.
The boss of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, said “the reaction has been negative. There’s no sugar-coating it,” but asked “that fans trust us,” stating that “in order to propel the franchises forward, we have to be the ones to constantly challenge the paradigms, challenge the conventional wisdom, challenge what we thought was the essence of the particular franchise, and a particular form of gameplay.”
Federation Force is not centered on series protagonist Samus Aran and does not involve as much exploration as other games in the series, instead focusing on co-op multiplayer. Gamers started a change.org petition to cancel the title. The petition reads, “The foundations of isolation, atmosphere and exploration in unknown planets are what made Metroid great…what we got however is a disgrace of a game with the name ‘Metroid’ slapped on the title.” The petition has 21,174 signatures at the time of writing.
Fils-Aime rationalized the negative feedback as a case of seeing vs. playing, stating that “everyone who has played what we are showing regarding Metroid Prime, they’ve come across really pleased.” Commenting on fans’ desire for an ordinary series game, Metroid Prime producer Kensuke Tanabe said, “I can’t say when, but I want to make another [Metroid Prime game]” but that he “wants to involve the [Galactic] Federation as well, so it would be a good idea to release a game like Federation Forces [sic] to flesh out its role in the galaxy before moving on to that.”
Follow Rob Shimshock on Twitter.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.