Report: Metroid Prime Trilogy Switch Port Finished Development

In the latest “Giant Bomb Show” this weekend, Venture Beat journalist Jeff Grub claims that a Switch port of the Metroid Prime trilogy was not only in the works but has finished development and is being held off by Nintendo to possibly align the release with their upcoming Metroid Prime 4 and restrictions within their QA department due to the pandemic.

This correlates with a claim made by another key figure in the industry back in 2019.

According to Grubb on his Giant Bomb Show, “I think the Metroid Prime Trilogy is done and whether or not Nintendo releases it now or later depends on other factors.”

He further states: “I think that game is sitting in their pocket for whenever Nintendo decides its the right time.”

Grubb further claims that one of the primary reasons for the delay in release is with regards to the restrictions in Nintendo’s QA testing process because of the pandemic.
He says: “I think a big problem for Nintendo for quite some time during the pandemic was QA… I think Nintendo was focusing its QA resources on one or two big projects at a time and that meant that some games that were basically finished were sitting on the side, while they had their lockdown secure QA processes focused on one or two more important games.”

He goes on to say: “The other factor for Metroid Prime Trilogy is that its definitely going to be a marketing beat for Metroid Prime 4, almost certainly. So right now we’re getting Metroid Dread this year and then I would imagine that Metroid Prime trilogy is something they’ll release close to the release of Metroid Prime 4, whenever that is.”

It’s undoubtedly going to be interesting how Nintendo captures the aiming and general controls of the original Wii Prime Trilogy into the handheld Nintendo Switch, but that’s something we’ll have to see with time.