Metroid Primeis an extremely beloved and influential series. Making its landmark appearance on the GameCube in the mid-2000s,Metroid Primehas left an incredibly strong impact on many who have played the series. Although, consideringMetroid’stransition from 2D to 3D,Metroid Primehad the opportunity to utilize a lot of assets that could only be found on 3D consoles at the time, such as voice acting. Now, a former audio designer explains why Samus did not receive any speaking roles during in any of theMetroid Primegames.
Ever since the release of the originalMetroid, the series' protagonist,Samus Aran, has been a near silent protagonist. In the 2D games, Samus communicates to the player via in-game text usually during the prologue section, and was even fully voiced inMetroid: Other M. Though, following the release ofMetroid Prime, it did present a unique opportunity to give Samus more speaking roles, but Nintendo never took advantage of it. However, according to a former Retro Studios audio designer, there is a good reason for this.
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In a recent episode of Kiwi Talks, Clark Wen, the formeraudio director of the firstMetroid PrimeandMetroid Prime 2: Echoes,explained that Samus was much more vocal in the original cut. Wen wanted Samus' grunts when taking damage to feel recognizable to players in-game, but when the voice clips were submittend to Nintendo, the studio rejected them, stating that the voice was too “sexual and sensual sounding.”
According to Wen, the voice clips were never meant to be in the final version of the game and served as more of a placeholder. Nintendo eventually landed onJennifer Hale, who provided the majority of Samus' audio during theMetroid Primetrilogy. In a way, it makes sense that Nintendo chose to veer away from the original audio, considering that Samus isn’t meant to be an inherently sexual character.
As she’s presented in practically every game in the series, Samus' character is typically very stoic. Players almost never see Samus outside of her various power suits and what little they do see of her true form is usually during death animations in games likeSuper MetroidandMetroid Dread.
In any case, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for theMetroidseries going forward. WhileMetroid Dreadhas garnered a significant amount of success, many fans are wondering whenMetroid Prime 4will release. Given that it has been over1000 days sinceMetroid Prime 4was mentioned by Nintendo, manyMetroid Primefans are calling for some kind of update regarding the game’s development.
