A team of fans has released Metroid Prime Origins, a complete 2D adaptation of the 2002 GameCube game, posting it to the Metroid subreddit on August 6, the 40th anniversary of the series. PC Gamer, which played the opening hour, describes it as an extremely polished Metroid game built around what its makers call a fake-bit aesthetic.
That style is reminiscent of the original 8-bit NES game but considerably more detailed, since the project is not bound by that console's colour palette or memory constraints. The result is deliberately more retro than Super Metroid rather than a copy of it, and the team built its own art rather than reusing official assets.
Mechanically, Samus can grapple smoothly over ledges, and on a controller free aim is mapped to the left bumper with aim lock on the right. Metroid Prime's scan visor is recreated: a trigger tap scans creatures into a bestiary, while rarer lore scan points fill a separate log with longer entries. The options menu covers autosave, hints, damage scaling, damage numbers, a setting that names each room on entry, and toggles for controller vibration and mouse aiming. The demake is currently Windows-only.
Nintendo's response was quick. The trailer was removed from YouTube within hours of release, and an Archive.org download link for the game went with it. The game remains available through Google Drive for now. Lead developer Lv.4 Games said on Reddit that they received no takedown notice from Nintendo, and the trailer's former YouTube page states it was removed for violating YouTube's Terms of Service.
This game was made with no generative AI. All sprites and music were created by fans, and all of the in-game lore has been re-written; based on the original NTSC lore.
The project was developed in secret for three years, which is why it reached release at all where many Nintendo fan games have not.
I couldn't talk about it for the last three years. It's a great mark of pride to have been a part of this project! Hopefully as many people as possible get to play it before Nintendo flips out.
Lv.4 Games previously worked on the fan game Castlevania ReVamped, which was later made open source and released for both Windows and Linux.
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