Retro Studios: pushing the Wii with Metroid Prime 3

It’s no secret that Retro Studios‘ Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is one of the most popular games on the Wii with it selling over 200,000 copies to date. How does a developer go about designing such a game, considering the hardware limitations of the Wii and at the same time maximizing its innovative control scheme?

Mark Pacini, the guy who directed the game, pointed out that developing the title had to start with a concept. He said that they set out to retain the Metroid feel of the game and at the same time “prove the controller”. The biggest problem they had was not motion control, but on maximizing the limited number of buttons on it. Fortunately, they were playing around with the idea of a system where everything stacked:

We were already talking about a system where everything stacked: your beam, your missiles, the grapple beam — all the additional abilities you get for those weapons stack so you don’t have to switch between beams, for instance. We definitely kept that in mind going forward because with limited buttons, we didn’t want to make this game overly complicated.

With regards to hardware limitations however, Art director Todd Keller stepped in and said that it wasn’t much of a problem. He noted that the Wii is a “a fairly decently powerful game system as far as polygons go.” He then added that while the console didn’t have much in terms of depth shaders, it can render really good color palates. That’s not all though, if you were impressed by Metroid Prime, Keller stated that people will eventually be able to “do more stuff that will be way beyond that.”

All in all, Retro studios did an amazing job with this game. If you own a Wii and want a good FPS for it, then this is one game you should pick-up. Both directors gave quite a few more details about the game in the full interview, click on our Read Link if you want to see it.

It’s no secret that Retro Studios‘ Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is one of the most popular games on the Wii with it selling over 200,000 copies to date. How does a developer go about designing such a game, considering the hardware limitations of the Wii and at the same time maximizing its innovative control scheme?

Mark Pacini, the guy who directed the game, pointed out that developing the title had to start with a concept. He said that they set out to retain the Metroid feel of the game and at the same time “prove the controller”. The biggest problem they had was not motion control, but on maximizing the limited number of buttons on it. Fortunately, they were playing around with the idea of a system where everything stacked:

We were already talking about a system where everything stacked: your beam, your missiles, the grapple beam — all the additional abilities you get for those weapons stack so you don’t have to switch between beams, for instance. We definitely kept that in mind going forward because with limited buttons, we didn’t want to make this game overly complicated.

With regards to hardware limitations however, Art director Todd Keller stepped in and said that it wasn’t much of a problem. He noted that the Wii is a “a fairly decently powerful game system as far as polygons go.” He then added that while the console didn’t have much in terms of depth shaders, it can render really good color palates. That’s not all though, if you were impressed by Metroid Prime, Keller stated that people will eventually be able to “do more stuff that will be way beyond that.”

All in all, Retro studios did an amazing job with this game. If you own a Wii and want a good FPS for it, then this is one game you should pick-up. Both directors gave quite a few more details about the game in the full interview, click on our Read Link if you want to see it.