All that work paid off
The saga of Nintendo versus various fan games has been a hot topic for a lot of people. While Nintendo may hold all the legal rights to own and distribute their IPs, what is the harm in a free fan game floating around? If anything, it builds up interest in the particular series to then have Nintendo go and make an official version, much like what sort of happened withMetroid: Samus ReturnsandAM2R.
Obviously that story is far more complicated than my condensed version, but its hard to deny that the existence ofAM2Rgot people anxious to see what Nintendo would be doing withMetroidnext. It could have also forced Nintendo’s hand in starting development onMetroid Prime 4to satiate fan desires, sinceSamus Returnshas a secret project for a few years.
Sadly,AM2Rgotwiped out of existencedue to a DMCA take down from Nintendo last year. While you can still find it online, if you look in shady places, the question of what that developer was going to do now that his magnum opus was unceremoniously put out to pasture was on a bunch of people’s minds. It looks like Moon Studios, the developers behindOri and the Blind Forest, have brought on the dev to work onOri’ssequel,Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
It’s a special day for another reason. I’m now part of Moon Studios, I’ll be working on level design for Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
— Project AM2R (@AM2Rgame)August 11, 2025
While it may not be with Nintendo and working onMetroid, this conclusion couldn’t have been happier. With a lot of fan games, people will spend years of their lives creating a true labor of love that then disappears and erases their legacy. While I doubt we ever would have seen the end ofAM2R(sinceMetroidfans are truly starved for anything relating to the franchise), at least the dev can go on to professionally work on games.
Hell, maybe Nintendo will wise up and hire him for a potential new 2DMetroidin the future. One can hope.
