 Retro Studios has hired someone. Oh my god, stop the presses. A new person joins Retro Studios and we've talked about some of these hires over this year. They've hired a crapload of some of the most talented people in the industry who've worked on massive games including games at Naughty Dog. This most recent hire is extremely interesting. Extremely interesting to the point that I am more hyped for Metroid Prime 4 than I think I have been since they showed the logo back at E3 2017. Before I get into it, I got to remind you we got a couple giveaways going on. The first one for a PlayStation 5, an Xbox Series X or a Nintendo Switch. The second one is for, well, Pikmin 3 Deluxe. We have two copies of that to give away as well. How to enter is down in the description. Obviously you can like, comment, subscribe to the channel, all that jazz, but there's some additional ways. Go check it out. Alright, so this recently came up on Nintendo Everything. They discovered this and it's interesting because this hire actually happened back in July. So it's a couple months ago, but a lot of times he's hired at the company. He's kind of fly under the radar and we just don't notice them. So what happened is, Retro hired someone from Sony, Santa Monica. His name is John Marcella. To understand how big of a deal John Marcella is, the most recent game he worked on was God of War. Now he worked on, I believe, a bunch of God of War games. The God of War game on PlayStation 4. Okay, cool. You hire someone who's worked on one of those games. What's the big loop here? Well, he was a designer on God of War Ascension and he was involved with elements such as game collision. On God of War for PlayStation 4, he was the senior game designer, aka a level designer and was involved with layouts, AI scripting, navigation sequences, fight spaces, puzzle design and more. Marcella spent over seven years with Sony Santa Monica. So seven years with Sony Santa Monica and he left them to work at Retro Studios on Metroid Prime 4. Now he was hired as an environment designer. To be specific, what his role is at Retro is an environment designer, taking full advantage of his ability for level design and AI and layouts and scripting and navigation sequences, all his whole complete workspace that he worked on at Sony Santa Monica for seven years. All of that talent put to use in the best way possible on Metroid Prime 4. Now, a lot of you guys are going to be asking, what does this mean for Metroid Prime 4? Like when's it coming? Does hiring this person mean that, you know, Metroid Prime 4 is, you know, not that far along and it's going to be, you know, five years, it's going to be a next-gen game? Well, that might happen anyways. This hire doesn't tell us anything about where Metroid Prime 4 is in its development cycle. Is it early? Is it late? Is it mid? Are we getting it next year? It doesn't sound like we're getting it next year, but are we getting it in 2022, 2023, 2024? This hire doesn't tell us anything other than we have someone extremely talented, extremely talented being added to the team to go along the laundry list of extremely talented people they've added to the team this year. Now, if I were to look at the totality of all of the talented people they have added this year, to me, this feels like they are probably towards the middle of development. They hit a point where they needed to add in some extremely talented people this year to get them over the hump. So to me, we're looking two years out. I'm thinking 2022, but this is just me guessing. It's speculation. I don't actually know how far along they are in development, nor do you. But this is awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I mean, remember, they hired a halo artist, a dice art director, the director of Warhawk, and many others. They hired so many talented people in 2020. But this guy, dude, God of War is one of the best franchises, in my opinion, that Sony has. And the God of War on PlayStation 4 was amazing and in many ways, felt very Metroid-esque in some of the level designs. And he was the senior level designer to have him working on Metroid Prime 4. Let's just say my heart's a flutter here. To get anything resembling a God of War-like level design that already felt Metroid-esque with an actual Metroid game. Dude, Nintendo, I think, is going all out. Now, Nintendo has been going all out with their major IPs. They went all out for Mario Odyssey, all out for Breath of the Wild, right? Two tentpole franchises, all out for Splatoon 2, now a tentpole franchise, all out for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. They tried, well, Pokemon Company tried their version of all out for Sword and Shield, I don't know, mixed reactions there. But Nintendo, I think, is going all out with Metroid Prime 4. This is going to be the most expensive Metroid ever made. It's going to have the most talent possibly ever assembled to create a Metroid game. Is the sales going to reward them for it? Remember, the best selling Metroid game of all time is Metroid Prime 1 that sold 4 million copies. Will the sales of Metroid Prime 4 justify the investment Nintendo's putting in this game? Remember, development was rebooted. They already have money sunk. They're never going to get back. Can Retro finally put a game out? I mean, that's another question we have to ask. All these talented hires is one thing. But Retro Studios hasn't put out a game since 2014. We're heading on seven years. Can Retro Studios complete a game anymore? We don't know. I wish I could confidently tell you, yep. And they're hiring all these talented people which would suggest they're getting their crap together. They're getting serious. They want to complete this. Nintendo is putting their money with their mouth. I mean, this guy was working at Sony Santa Monica for seven years. He doesn't just walk away from what was likely working on the next God of War game and come to Retro for nothing. One, he probably loves the Metroid Prime series, of course. But two, he has to be getting paid well. At least what he was making, if not a little bit more for Retro to take him away from Sony. This is another great hire for the Metroid Prime 4 team. I keep getting more and more impressed with the talent they're bringing in. This is the kind of talent Nintendo usually doesn't get in the West. They are dragging in some of the best of the best talent in this industry to their team. Now we just need to see them complete the project. Complete the dream. Can they make Metroid Prime 4 the greatest Metroid game of all time? Because that's what the expectations are at. Retro Studios, makers of the original Metroid Prime trilogy. Metroid Other M was a letdown. Federation Force was just the wrong time to release it when they haven't had a Metroid game in a while, right? Oh my God, Samus Returns was great, but it's not a new Metroid game. Here we are. Metroid Prime 4. There's a lot of pressure on them. Not only to get this game to sell well, but to be the greatest experience we've ever had, suiting up as Samus Iran. I know I wouldn't want that pressure on my shoulders, but I'm not a game developer right now. So anyways, good luck. And I hope we see this game, at least the trailer of it next year. I'll catch you guys in the next video.