Retro Studios is searching for a new lead producer to help develop Metroid Prime 4. The development of Metroid Prime 4 has been extremely rocky over the years, with Retro keeping a tight lid on its development cycle after the game was restarted from scratch in early 2019.
Metroid Prime 4 was first announced in 2017 with a small teaser during E3. After this announcement, nothing was revealed about the game until 2019, when it was announced that Retro Studios was taking over development and getting rid of the game's build in progress. Since then, there have been no new updates from Retro, and the development process that the studio has gone through since taking the helm of the next Metroid installment is unknown. The only real piece of information to come out since then is that Retro has been staffing up to help with the project, including hiring the designer behind Halo's Spartans, Kyle Hefley.
This hiring spree seems to be an ongoing process with the development for Metroid Prime 4. Retro Studios has put out a call on Twitter asking for a new lead producer to join the Metroid Prime 4 team. The tweet has a link to Nintendo's career page, where several other positions at Retro Studios are available to apply for as well, such as a lead graphics engineer, concept artist, and senior level designer.
This move is the next in what seems to be a shaky pattern for Retro Studios. In 2018, reviews on Glassdoor.com surfaced, showing former employees' concerns about working conditions at the studio. These include comments such as Retro having "poor communication" and "unclear direction," as well as the complaint that "low-to mid-level staffers ought to have more of a voice on projects and deadlines." While Glassdoor reviews are anonymous and thus their truth can't be verified, the possibility of these testimonials being legit does line up with the development process Metroid Prime 4 is going through.
It would be strange for Retro Studios to be only adding a lead producer a year and a half after the announcement of Metroid Prime 4 being scrapped and reset, making it more likely that a producer has recently left. Digging into Retro's history shows that things might not be all sunshine and rainbows at the company, so who knows how far Metroid Prime 4 actually is in its development? Something is definitely going on with Retro Studios, even if it's unknown just what that is. Fans will have to hope that somehow, Metroid Prime 4 sees the light of day some years in the future.
Source: Retro Studios/Twitter, Glassdoor.com