This one comes from journalist Jeff Grubb, who claimed in a recent episode of his Giant Bomb show Grubbsnax (spotted and transcribed by VGC) that Metroid Prime Trilogy is in fact real. According to Grubb, development on the trilogy’s remaster is done, but Nintendo is holding on to it nonetheless, and not quite ready to send it out into the world just yet.

And why exactly is that the case? According to Grubb, whether or not Nintendo releases Metroid Prime Trilogy in the next year or so depends on a number of factors. For starters, the quality assurance of development in particular that has been impacted quite a bit due to the COVID pandemic, while Grubb also says that Nintendo wants to hold on to the trilogy until Metroid Prime 4 is much closer to launch.

This is, of course, not the first time we’ve heard something along these lines. All the way back in early 2019, it was claimed that development on Metroid Prime Trilogy had already wrapped up.

In related news, former Metroid Prime designer Michael Wikan claimed earlier this year that porting the entire trilogy to the Switch would be a “herculean” effort, in particular due to the fact that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is built entirely around motion controls. Read more on that through here.

Regardless of whether or not Metroid Prime Trilogy ever sees the light of day, series fans still have plenty else to look forward to, with Metroid Dread launching this October and Metroid Prime 4 also in the works.

Rumours of the Metroid Prime trilogy being remastered and ported to the Switch have been around since pretty much the day Metroid Prime 4 was announced, and even after the latter’s development was rebooted, leading to an indefinitely delay, those rumours have refused to go away. Of course, a Metroid Prime Trilogy release for the Switch remains as elusive as ever- so what exactly is the deal with that? Well, according to former Retro Studios veteran Michael Wikan, who was a senior designer on all three Metroid Prime games, that might be a little unlikely.

As spotted by Nintendo Everything, Wikan recently said in Facebook comments that Metroid Prime Trilogy would be hard to pull off for the Switch. According to Wikan, Metroid Prime 3 in particular would present challenges, in terms of translating the fully motion controlled game to traditional controls.

“I am pretty skeptical it will happen,” Wikan wrote. “It was straightforward to update Metroid Prime 1 and Metroid Prime 2 to motion controls, but converting Metroid Prime 3 to normal controls would be a herculean effort, as it is scripted very specifically using volumetric triggers to detect the motion in precise manners to do specific switches, and the bosses are tuned to take into account the ease of gestural aiming.”

Wikan also wrote that in the absence of “functional editor tools” at Retro Studios, the task of recoding Metroid Prime 3 would be a challenging one. He wrote: “The biggest issue is that Retro Studios no longer has functional editor tools to work with the Prime code base, so everything has to be ‘brute force’ hard coded.

“Rebuilding the hundreds of interaction sets in Metroid Prime 3 alone, not to mention re-tuning the game play to take in the slower engagement pacing of conventional controls, would probably take a year with a 4-5 person team, full-time, by itself.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that this will never happen – perhaps Retro has been working on this behind the scenes for some time – but Wikan’s comments do make it clear that even if it does, it wouldn’t be a simple porting job- which would also explain why it hasn’t happened in all this time.

Here’s hoping we do get to play the entire trilogy on the Switch before Metroid Prime 4 launches though- whenever that happens.

The beginning of this year saw some sad news for Metroid fans when it was announced that Metroid Prime 4‘s development had effectively been scrapped and restarted with Retro Studios at the helm. While a new Metroid Prime helmed by Retro make fans lick their lips, no doubt, it also means we won’t see that game for a good while. So, are Metroid fans doomed to starve? Well, we’re used to it, but if an alleged leak is true, maybe there will be something to munch on until Prime 4.

According to LeakyPandy, there’s not just one game planned before Prime 4 but actually two. They say that over the next two fiscal years Nintendo will finally release a HD version of Metroid Prime Trilogy as well as a remake of Super Metroid in the style and scope of Samus Returns.

Obviously, like all leaks we have to file this under speculation, but LeakyPandy has had some good scopes in the past (though they have also had some duds, to be fair) and the Metroid Prime Trilogy, at least, has been something rumored for well over a year. Fingers crossed we’re not just being taken for a ride as both titles would make the wait for Metroid Prime 4 a little easier.

Nintendo is planning 2 new Metroid titles that will release in the next two fiscal years respectively. One is a re-release of Metroid Prime Trilogy HD, the second one is a Super Metroid Remake that mimics Samus Returns in style and scope.

— LeakyPandy (@LeakyPandy) November 25, 2019

Not content to have leaked Joker’s render for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and also an apparent Switch version of Persona 5, Best Buy has gone for a hat trick by also having a listing for Metroid Prime Trilogy in their system.

Metroid Prime Trilogy is actually one of the more sensible and predictable leaks—it’s been speculated and rumored on for a while now, and we had well placed sources mentioning it was already complete and just awaiting a release. Presumably it would remaster all three Metroid Prime games in HD, and would be a great way to prime (heh) players ahead of the release of the now-delayed Metroid Prime 4.

Once again, I urge everyone to exercise caution. While retailer listings, especially from one as huge as Best Buy, are not necessarily meritless, it is important to note they are not actual confirmations. They just indicate there is a lot of smoke. Now to find that fire…

On top of Persona 5 (Switch) being in Best Buy's employee system, there is also a listing for METROID PRIME TRILOGY FOR NINTENDO SWITCH pic.twitter.com/0vU3w4mukT

— Wario64 (@Wario64) April 3, 2019

Metroid Prime 4 is delayed, and we have no idea when to expect it might come out. Nintendo made the announcement this morning that the title’s development was not up to their standards, and that they would be starting over from scratch, with Retro Studios, the developers of the original trilogy, back on board for the new game.

However, while we wait for Metroid Prime 4, we may still be getting some Metroid action on the Switch. A Metroid Prime Trilogy port for Nintendo’s console has been rumored for a while, and it seems like it will be coming shortly. Speaking on Twitter, Imran Khan, an editor for Game Informer, confirmed that development on Metroid Prime Trilogy has long been completed, and that it was initially supposed to be announced last month (which would tie into the rumors about an announcement at The Game Awards for it).

Presumably, it was meant to be alongside a Metroid Prime 4 showing, but Nintendo felt uncomfortable premiering that game, when its status was so unclear, and therefore Metroid Prime Trilogy also got pulled. We can hope that Metroid Prime Trilogy itself will be announced some time soon, possibly in a Nintendo Direct. I think that will be one way to placate fans who now have to wait years longer for a new entry in their favorite franchise.

It's been long done. Initial announcement was supposed to be last month.

— Imran Khan (@imranzomg) January 25, 2019

The Game Awards are almost here, and we know that they’ll be a pretty packed event this time around. However, one company has been conspicuously quiet about what, if anything, it will bring to the show this year. That company is Nintendo. While Nintendo’s President Reggie Fils-Aime discretely teased at Metroid project being a part of the proceedings this year a while ago, we haven’t had any concrete indications either way.

Now, it seems a whole lot of insiders, with a history of having accurately leaked Nintendo related news in the past—including Jon Cartwright of GameXplain, and Direct-Feed Games, both of whom have accurately revealed the dates and contents of Nintendo Directs this year (among various other accurate reveals)—are hinting at Metroid in fact being at the event this year.

In response to Geoff Keighley’s statement that more than 10 new games will be announced at the event, and more previously games will be shown as well, they have all responded with some not very subtle tweets pointing at Metroid as being part of the package.

Now, whether this indicates Metroid Prime 4–which was announced over a year ago, and which we have not seen since—or Metroid Prime Trilogy–a Switch remaster of the three Metroid Prime games, presumably ahead of Prime 4 to drum up interest in the franchise—or even both, remains to be seen. For now, we just know that we need to tune in to The Game Awards tomorrow to know either way whether we get our next look at Metroid then.

If only we had an X-Ray Visor to see what these games are https://t.co/NpikLp0xMo

— Jon Cartwright (@JonComms) November 27, 2018

pic.twitter.com/JS4hBnEMnk

— Direct-Feed Games (@DirectFeedGames) November 27, 2018

Metroid Prime Trilogy, the Wii remaster of all three Metroid Prime games, that cleaned up the graphics, added the enhanced pointer controls that got so much praise in Corruption (and replaced the obtuse Gamecube controls), achievements, oodles of extra content, and brought all three games together in one package, is now available on the eShop on Wii U, as part of Nintendo’s initiative to bring Wii games to the Wii U Virtual Console. And the best part is, just for this one week, Nintendo will offer it for just $10. Considering that discs for this game go for over $150 on eBay, $10 is an absurdly good deal.

Metroid Prime Trilogy isn’t the only exciting thing happening on the eShop this week either, as the Nintendo 3DS exclusive Codename STEAM, the brand new strategy game IP from Intelligent Systems (the developers of Fire Emblem and Advance Wars) gets a brand new playable demo, offering up to three chapters of play, as well.

So yeah, fire up those Nintendo systems and enjoy the offerings.

Another great announcement that Nintendo made during the Nintendo Direct this morning was that Wii games would be coming to the Virtual Console on Wii U’s eShop starting today. Although Wii U is fully backwards compatible with Wii, this is a big deal for a lot of reasons- first, of course, most Wii games are surprisingly hard to find, having been out of print for a long time, and commanding prices reaching over $150 on online sites. Secondly, playing Wii games on the Wii U required you to enter the Wii Mode, a sandboxed emulation of the entire Wii console, which was a tedious and nonsensical workabout. Finally, these Wii games promise to be optimized for Wii U, including full Gamepad control support in games that originally supported the Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro on the Wii.

If all of this sounds too good to be true, it gets even better- Nintendo is starting it big, with the Wii Virtual Console available on the eShop today. The launch title is Super Mario Galaxy 2, the highest rated game of last generation, and one of the best games of all time; over the next few weeks, Nintendo plans on adding games such as Punch Out!!, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Pandora’s Tower, and Sin and Punishment: Star Successor.

Like… damn.

And you want to know the kicker? Each game will only cost $10.

Get on it.