August 6th, 2026 was the 40th anniversary of Metroid, one of the few videogames in history to be so influential it has a whole genre named (at least partially) after it. You’d be forgiven for not realizing last Thursday was such a significant date because Nintendo seemingly forgot itself—and not for the first time.
But the anniversary didn’t go completely uncelebrated. Posted to the Metroid subreddit last Thursday, a new fan game called Metroid Prime Origins marked the occasion with a “a fully complete adaptation of Metroid Prime for the GameCube in 2D, complimented by a fake-bit aesthetic.” I’ve played the first hour or so, and it’s an extremely polished, great-feeling Metroid game that could pass as the real deal if Nintendo ever actually made throwbacks this cool.
That “fake-bit aesthetic” means Metroid Prime Origins is stylistically reminiscent of the original, 8-bit NES game, but significantly more detailed. It’s not holding itself to the harsh color palette or memory constraints of that console, but still deliberately a bit more “retro” than Super Metroid. For a moment I found that disappointing—Super Metroid is still a fantastic looking game—but the more I reflected on it, the more I was glad to see this fan team go for their own distinct look. Considering many fan games either reuse official art assets or craft their own to look nigh identical, Metroid Prime Origins feels like a cut above from the start.
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It plays really well, too. Samus can smoothly grapple over ledges, and on a controller free aim is mapped to left bumper and aim lock is mapped to right bumper, making it quite easy to hit enemies without awkwardly repositioning yourself. Metroid Prime’s scan visor, used in puzzle solving and to deliver lore about every little thing in the 3D game, is nicely recreated here: you just tap a trigger to scan creatures, which are added to a bestiary, while less frequent lore scan spots fill in a log with more detailed entries.
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It’s been so long since I played Metroid Prime that I can’t say in too much detail how closely Prime Origins hews to its design. The novelty of Metroid Prime way back in 2002 was in how it translated the series’ traditionally more limited navigational puzzles and interconnected rooms into more complex 3D, so this process of working backwards does make Prime Origins feel quite traditional and familiar. But considering how few actual 2D Metroid games Nintendo has made in the last 20 years, a good one of those is probably happy news for a lot of people.
It’s seemingly not happy news for Nintendo, though, as Prime Origins’ trailer was removed from YouTube within hours of launch, and so was an Archive.org download link for the game itself. It’s currently still available for download via Google Drive, though for how long it’s hard to say.
“This game was made with no generative AI. All sprites and music were created by fans, and all of the in-game lore has been re-written; based on the original NTSC lore,” lead developer Lv.4 Games wrote on Reddit. “P.S. I know I am now a target of the Nintendo ninjas, no need to tell me.”
(Image credit: Lv.4 Games)
Lv.4 Games also posted on Reddit that they received no takedown notice from Nintendo; the trailer’s former YouTube page states it was “removed for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service.”
It’s impressive that the developers managed to develop the entire game in stealth and release it without getting shut down like so many Nintendo fan games in the past. That was clearly a calculated move.
“I couldn’t talk about it for the last three years,” sprite artist Zevroid posted on Reddit. “It’s a great mark of pride to have been a part of this project! Hopefully as many people as possible get to play it before Nintendo flips out.”
It’s hard to stress just how polished Metroid Prime Origins is, despite being an unofficial release. The generous options menu includes autosave, hints, damage scaling and damage numbers, and a neat setting that lists the name of each room when you enter it; you can also toggle controller vibration and mouse aiming on or off, so Metroid Prime Origins is playable even if you don’t have a controller.
The demake is currently only available on Windows, but that may change at some point. Lv.4 Games previously worked on another well-received fan game, Castlevania ReVamped, which was later made open source and released for both Windows and Linux.
