We imagine Retro Studios is one company that needs absolutely no introduction on these pages, but we’re about to provide one anyway as the developer is today celebrating 20 years in the world of gaming.
Yes, back in 1998, Retro Studios was born as a game development studio with Nintendo acting as a parent company. Its initial aim was to create games which would appeal to an older demographic for the GameCube (which, at the time, was still a few years away from release). Eventually, all efforts were focused on a new project called Metroid Prime – a new entry to the series which would use 3D graphics for the first time. The rest, as they say, is history.
After the success of Metroid Prime – which went on to sell 250,000 copies in its opening week – Retro moved onto the sequels Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, released for the GameCube and Wii respectively. From there, we’ve now also seen Donkey Kong Country Returns on Wii (after Retro was specifically recommended for the project by Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe), Mario Kart 7, and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for Wii U (which has recently been ported to Nintendo Switch).
Since Tropical Freeze’s launch, Retro’s actions have been largely shrouded in mystery. Metroid Prime 4 has been announced, but we know that Retro isn’t involved, and rumours began to circulate earlier this year suggesting that a new title called Star Fox: Grand Prix was on the way – a racing game which supposedly combines elements of Diddy Kong Racing and F-Zero.
In reality, of course, we just don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. What we do know is that we can’t wait to find out.