Unseen footage has emerged of a ‘Portal with combat’ game from Metroid Prime developer Retro Studios. Sadly, Nintendo turned it down.
YouTube channel DidYouKnowGaming has revealed never-before-seen footage of the game that Retro Studios was working on after Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
Called Adept, the game is described as ‘Portal with combat’, with the player able to generate cylinders that can teleport enemies, objects and projectiles. Unlike Portal, the player can generate as many of these cylinder portals as they like, rather than just two.
There are other cylinders with different abilities, too. One cylinder can attract projectiles, and the prototype video shows the player casting one on an enemy, which causes its projectiles to rebound back on it. There are fire and ice cylinders as well, in addition to a force cylinder that thrusts objects into the air.
The Adept prototype was spearheaded by Retro Studios’ Paul Tozour, who was a programmer on Metroid Prime 2 and 3. Tozour presented the prototype to Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe, but it was rejected.
The video claims that: “Retro’s handlers at Nintendo didn’t seem to know what Portal was, and didn’t really play games made outside Nintendo.”
Paul Tozour, who’s interviewed for the video, said: “Nintendo Japan is very insular, and there is very much a ‘not invented here’ syndrome.” He goes on to say that he actually bought a copy of Portal, and tried to give it to Tanabe to help explain his pitch for Adept. “And they said ‘Sorry, we can’t accept gifts, company policy’.”
The pitch for Adept was made in around late 2007 or early 2008, not long after the release of Portal in October 2007. At the time, Retro Studios was working on Metroid Prime: Trilogy, and Adept would have used the Metroid Prime engine. DidYouKnowGaming’s deep-dive video also investigates several other Retro Studios prototypes that have previously emerged, including Raven Blade, Car Combat and The Blob Game.
Retro Studios would later go on to work on games including Donkey Kong Country Returns, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Metroid Prime Remastered, the latter of which was released earlier this year. The studio is currently working on the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4, which was announced at E3 2017 and was originally being made by Bandai Namco, until development was restarted at Retro Studios in 2019.
Read more: Universal closes in on Nintendo detail for Legend Of Zelda movie
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