Now celebrated for the revitalization of the Donkey Kong Country series, Retro Studios was made famous by the highly-regarded Metroid Prime trilogy, and they nearly took the Metroid franchise in an entirely new direction with Metroid Tactics. This was to be a top-down turn-based tactics game very much in the vein of X-COM, and it may have become an all-new Metroid subseries had the studio not opted to move on from the franchise due to fatigue.
Pitched internally in 2007, Metroid Tactics was to be a major departure from the side-scrolling platforming of the franchise’s inception and the first-person shooting that came to define Metroid in the early 2000s. Intended for release on the Wii, the game would likely have played something like the 2K Games-published X-COM re-imagining that was released in 2012. The franchise seems like an ideal fit for this style of gameplay, and the Retro Studios team seems to have put quite a bit of consideration into the concept before it was ultimately scrapped.
Revealed via an interview with Paul Tozour—a member of Retro Studios Metroid Prime development team—conducted by DidYouKnowGaming, Metroid Tactics was likely to have been fairly large in scope. Though longtime protagonist Samus Aran would have appeared as a squad member, players would have assumed the role of Galactic Federation Commander Justin Bailey. A reference to a notorious cheat code from the original Metroid game, Justin Bailey would have overseen combat on fronts of all kinds, providing a broad look at the game’s universe not typically seen in the maze-like, claustrophobic level designs of mainline Metroid games. Ultimately, the idea was scrapped, and Retro Studios later pitched a Legend of Zelda title to Nintendo called Heroes of Hyrule that was denied.
Strangely enough, the X-COM influence would have a major impact on another, far less likely Nintendo franchise. Released in 2017, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was frequently compared to X-COM and featured Mario uniting with Ubisoft’s Rabbid mascots to engage in turn-based bouts against Mushroom Kingdom baddies. While the Retro Studios project isn’t likely to have influenced Ubisoft’s endeavor, it’s nonetheless an interesting correlation.
The title would eventually earn a sequel in 2022’s Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope which innovated quite significantly on the original. While far from the gritty sci-fi saga Metroid Tactics was likely to be, fans were, at the very least, able to see a major Nintendo IP embrace turn-based gameplay in the modern era.