Metroid Prime Engineer “Let Down” By Original Credits Being Left Out of the Remaster

Update :Jack Mathews, the original technical lead engineer for Metroid Prime, has since expressed his own opinions and called it a “travesty.”

In a letter to Axios, he expressed the following views regarding the remaster’s failure to give the original developers due credit:

“When my son plays Metroid Prime on the Switch for the first time, the fact that he won’t see [my] and my colleagues’ names in the credits as the original creators is a punch in the gut.”

This is a travesty. Not just for my credit (even though most of my code was probably replaced), but for people whose code and work are largely unchanged, like Mark HH, Steve McCrea, all of the uprezzed art and concepts, the game design. Shameful. https://t.co/y6tXyCG3N1

— Jack Mathews (@jack_mathews) February 12, 2023

Original article:After years of persistent rumors, Nintendo surprised pretty much everyone earlier this week when it shadow-dropped Metroid Prime Remastered.

While the majority of people are content, it appears that not everyone is content. Zoid Kirsch, a former engineer at Retro Studios, recently expressed his displeasure with the remastered game’s doors and his frustration that the game’s credits do not include the entirety of the original credits.

It only mentions that the remaster is “based on the work of Metroid Prime development staff” on a single screen instead:

Zoid Kirsch (@ZoidCTF): “While many studios did amazing work on the remaster, I’m let down Metroid Prime’s Remaster does not include the full original game credits. I worked with so many amazing people on the game and everyone’s name should be included in the remaster, not just a single card like this.”

Yeah im not a fan of this practice. In remasters I've worked on we've credited the original game. in some cases we put them before the remaster team. not cool

— MVG (@ModernVintageG) February 11, 2023

As a senior gameplay engineer, Kirsch initially contributed to Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the GameCube. Other original development teams are now also left out of the game credits for remakes and remasters, so this situation isn’t exactly unique.