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Metroid Tactics was the name of a spinoff of the Metroid Prime series pitched by Paul Tozour at Retro Studios. Its existence was first revealed in a 2022 video from DidYouKnowGaming? on YouTube that revealed development secrets of multiple unreleased Metroid titles.
Tozour wrote the game's pitch in 2007 shortly after the release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Like that game, Metroid Tactics was intended for release on the Wii. His pitch's selling points were its potential to transfer the Metroid series' boss battles into a tactical strategy context, its use of the Wii Remote's motion controls, the potential to bring down costs by reusing the engine and assets from the Metroid Prime series, and the potential for a simple multiplayer mode with limited impact on performance or bandwidth. Due to franchise fatigue with Metroid in Retro Studios after developing three games, and the lack of support from Retro's management, Metroid Tactics never entered production. Nintendo never saw the pitch.
Gameplay[]
Tozour likened the gameplay of Tactics to XCOM, a tactical turn-based strategy franchise. Playable characters included Samus Aran, a squad of elite Galactic Federation soldiers, and various Bounty Hunters. New units could be hired, and existing units upgraded with armor, weapons, skill upgrades and other abilities.
The pitch document's explanation of Action Points, as featured in the DidYouKnowGaming? video.
Up to 20 units could be used at one time, with each having a set number of Action Points to be spent on movement or combat. Once all Action Points were exhausted, or the player chose to end the turn, the enemy units would move. Enemies would be invisible to the naked eye, requiring the player to get close or discover hidden units through their abilities.
Characters would have specific abilities, such as Samus's power-ups from the Prime series, including the Power, Plasma and Nova Beams, Ice, Super, Seeker and regular Missiles, Boost Ball and Power Bombs. Each character could also earn experience points and level up, gaining access to even more abilities. In Samus's case, she would earn the Seeker Missile for example by leveling up.
Federation troopers could equip standard military weaponry, including pistols (with the option for dual wield), assault rifles, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades (including smoke grenades), proximity mines, health packs and any recovered Space Pirate weaponry. Their accuracy could be increased with skills and certain weapons, and they could also improve their enemy detection and healing abilities.
The game would start with the Federation commander Justin Bailey hiring Samus and training her, before acquiring enough funding to hire and equip more elite troopers, and Bounty Hunters, the latter being more expensive. Successfully completing missions would reward Bailey with Galactic Federation credits (which served as the in-game currency), and he could steal and sell Space Pirate technology for additional funds. Completing side objectives in missions, such as rescuing civilians, would reward extra cash.
The control scheme of Metroid Tactics was similar to mouse-driven turn-based PC games, making use of the Wii Remote's motion controls and Nunchuk. Actions could be chosen with a radial menu similar to Visor/Beam Select in the Prime series, and the camera could be zoomed in or out by pushing or pulling the Wii Remote toward or away from the screen. Ridley and the "Berserker Pirate" (Berserker Knight) would appear as bosses.
Plot[]
Metroid Tactics would have been a prequel to the entire series, chronicling Samus Aran's departure for the cosmos when she came of age, and the first encounter between humanity and the Space Pirates. These events were previously depicted in the Magazine Z manga, which was never officially released outside of Japan. Samus would be forced to work with an elite team of Galactic Federation soldiers and other Bounty Hunters to stop a Space Pirate incursion on Federation-controlled planets like Norion and Earth, before finally confronting them on Zebes, leading into the original Metroid and its remake. Instead of Samus, the protagonist of the game was a Federation commander named Justin Bailey, a name Tozour regretted choosing.
Bailey would have located Samus and given her training missions, before receiving enough funding to hire more soldiers.