Metroid Prime: Trilogy - Development and Release

Development and Release

In 2004, while Retro Studios was finishing Echoes, senior producer Bryan Walker suggested to studio president Michael Kelbaugh to "do something for the fans by putting all the games together on a single disc in a collectors 'trilogy' edition". Kelbaugh sent the proposal to Nintendo, which the company accepted. Development on the compilation started shortly before the release of Corruption, and used only a few of Retro Studios' staff, as most of the crew was busy with Donkey Kong Country Returns. Prime series producer Kensuke Tanabe asked the staff to resolve most of the glitches for the Trilogy release to prevent sequence breaking.

Walker considered the compilation to be "an almost unheard of opportunity to take something you had already released and make it better". Senior designer Mike Wikan said most of the content additions were subtle changes, such as streamlining the engines for steady framerates and shorter loading times, and higher resolution textures. Prime had the addition of light bloom, and Echoes had difficulty tweaks to make it "more accessible to those who were really intimidated early on". For Corruption, the code was examined to find ways to make it run faster and better than in the original Wii release.

Besides the changes, the particle and water ripple effects found in the original versions of Prime were reduced. The word "damn" uttered by the character Admiral Dane in Corruption's original release was also removed. Corruption voice actor Timothy Patrick Miller recalled on a minor dialogue alteration for his voice work: "I realize that video games even more than film is a Directors medium. The Director will take any actors performance, edit it, cut it and in general mold it to fit his vision of the overall project. Not only do I not have a problem with that, I don’t see how it can be any other way. Should they find it not to work I expect the voice will be dropped."

On October 2, 2008, Nintendo presented the New Play Control! series of GameCube remakes, with Prime and Echoes among the initial Japan titles. In May 2009, Nintendo announced that all three games would be packaged in a single-disk compilation internationally. In April 2011, a copy of Trilogy — signed by Retro Studios staff and the Prime series producer — was auctioned on Amazon, with 100 percent of proceeds to be donated to the relief efforts for the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. At the 2011 Game Developers Conference, Kelbaugh stated that the studio have no plans for the Trilogy to be re-released.

Metroid Prime: Trilogy was released in North America on August 24, 2009, packaged in a steel-book case, along with an art booklet. The European release in the following month maintained the booklet, while the Australian release in October only had a metallic cardboard slip cover. On January 8, 2010, it was reported that Nintendo of America was no longer producing or shipping Metroid Prime: Trilogy, and stated that players may still be able to find second-hand copies of Trilogy via video game stores. On January 11, 2010, it was reported that Nintendo Australia had also discontinued the game. Following Nintendo of America's announcement, Nintendo of Europe assured that the game was not discontinued in their region.