One of the original developers of Metroid Prime was disappointed to learn that the original cast of the remastered version was left out of the credits.

A former developer at Retro Studios is voicing his frustration with an aspect of the recently released Metroid Prime Remastered, commenting on the lack of credits for the original developers. The remaster was digitally shadowed earlier this month, where it was featured in the February 2023 Nintendo Direct before being announced a day after the show ended. The remaster received a lot of praise, not only for updating one of the most beloved games in Metroid history, but also for being better than a simple visual update. However, a former developer of the game criticized some aspects of Metroid Prime Remastered.

These reviews come from Zoid Kirsch, who was the programmer and lead gameplay engineer at Retro Studios for the first two Metroid Prime games. He left the studio during development of the third game and retired from the industry in 2021. Today, he shares stories about the development of games he’s worked on, such as when he did a speedrun after the game went gold. He also commented on the recently released Metroid Prime Remastered, expressing his frustration with the practice of excluding him and the original developers from the end credits.

In a tweet posted by Kirsch, he stated that while he appreciates the many studios that helped remaster Metroid Prime, he was “disappointed” that the remaster did not include all of the game’s original credits. He noted that he worked with a lot of people to make the game what it was, and that they all deserve to be in the sequence. He felt it should be more than just a credit card with a brief description that it was based on his original work.

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. pic.twitter.com/Yvojf9f9Mq

— Zoid Kirsch (@ZoidCTF) February 11, 2023

Yeah, I’m not a fan of this practice. For the remasters I worked on, we gave credit to the original game. in some cases we put them in front of the remaster team. not good — MVG (@ModernVintageG) February 11, 2023

A co-developer at Nightdive Studios, ModernVintageGamer, also expressed his disappointment. He notes that for the remasters he’s worked on at Nightdive, he includes the original team who worked on the game, and in some cases the original team appears before the remastered team. He concludes by saying that it is bad practice to exclude developers from game credits.

This practice has also been a common problem with the various remasters released over the years. Last year, Bandai Namco’s Pac-Man World Re-PAC also excluded the original developers from the credits, which was criticized by one of the original contributors to the game. Eventually, though, a patch for Pac-Man World Re-PAC was released that put the original credits back into the game. It seems fans would like Nintendo to follow the same courtesy for Metroid Prime Remastered and patch the original credits into the game as well.

Metroid Prime Remastered is now available for Nintendo Switch.