It seems like only yesterday that Retro Studios was some unknown game developer without a game on the market yet working on half a dozen or so titles (including Raven Blade) for the upcoming Project Dolphin. Out of the blue, Nintendo buys the company and hands them the Metroid franchise. The Texas-based developer was able to make a trio of games more than worthy of the Nintendo label, and Retro president Michael Kelbaugh and Prime 3 director Mark Pacini spoke recently on the experience.
Exactly how does Retro Studios interact with Nintendo?
Kelbaugh: …On the Metroid Prime titles, we were one team – part of which just happened to be in Japan. We work with Kensuke Tanabe, of Nintendo’s Software Planning Division. He helps us to ensure we’re making Nintendo-quality games and had a tremendous amount of creative influence on the Metroid Prime titles. We also worked with Yoshio Sakamoto. Metroid is his ‘baby’ and he made sure that we realized his vision.
So Nintendo is involved in every design decision Retro Studios makes?
Pacini: It’s more granular later in the project. If we show them something and they say, Meh, it’s OK,” we know that’s way too early for them to want to look at it. As we get later in a project they get more detailed, because polish is what makes a Nintendo game. They hammer the game from every possible angle. It can be literally as small as moving a box one centimeter to the left. They can spot these little details that are so important to game flow.
The rest of the short interview is linked below, but there’s no new information regarding Retro’s future projects.
