Retro Studios’ Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a game I waited 18 years for, and, as much as it pains me to say it, the game was alright. As one of the most linear games in the adventure series yet, the game was kneecapped by countless cutscenes, a dull open world, and nagging characters.

While I don’t mind Level 4 Engineer Miles McKenzie as much as some players, the chatty scientist can be very annoying while you’re exploring Sol Valley. If you’re attempting to round up the game’s horrendously dull green crystals, especially near the endgame, you’ll be barraged with hints from the engineer about mech parts, the crystals you’re already smashing and more.

In an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu, Retro Studios wanted to make sure that the human characters in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond weren’t “annoying” to players. Needless to say, the team may have failed in that goal, but at least the game is pretty to look at.

“[The characters in the hub’s] personalities were decided on depending on their roles,” an unnamed developer said. “MacKenzie, the engineer, acts as the player’s guide so we consciously gave him a bright, light-hearted vibe. We wanted him to develop items and such, so he is presented as a highly talented, technically minded person. But in order to make sure he wasn’t annoying, we made his character absent-minded and kind of cowardly.”

“We couldn’t bear to go back any further than we had already reset the development (when we started over at Retro Studios), so we decided to complete the game with the original concept.”

According to another section of the interview, the development team admitted they were “perhaps influenced by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild [as] there were quite a few voices online expressing interest in making an open-world Metroid game”.

In reality, the game is more so a clone of the Skyward Sword formula with a small hub, a vehicle and very linear levels. The development team admitted that they realised during development that “Metroid’s core element of gaining abilities and expanding your range of action doesn’t mesh well with an open world where players can move freely from the start. So, we decided to limit the area of free movement and use it as a hub to connect other areas”.

This is important for the situation surrounding Miles McKenzie as a lot of the character’s annoyances come from the fact that he is inaccurate. At the start of the game, Miles infers that you can get the game’s five keys in any order before quickly telling you where ton actually go. Additionally, the character tells Samus she can radio for help at any time, but he’s curiously hint-less whenever you actually need him.

In the interview, the development team explained that they realised the style of open-world they had created for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was already unpopular, saying “we recognised that players’ impressions of open-world games had changed.” Unfortunately, the team also explained that they “couldn’t bear to go back any further than we had already reset the [game’s] development”, leading to the final game we see today.

It’s interesting, but also rare to see a Nintendo game’s failings be so specifically explained so close to release. Metroid Prime 4 isn’t a bad game, it’s just a poor Metroid game, and it seems that everyone involved knows that the title isn’t really up to snuff, and it’s incredible specific to see this level of transparency from a Nintendo game.