This fan-made Metroid 64 project is a polygonal beauty

Metroid 64 never officially happened, but a nostalgic Samus fan is giving us a look at what it might've ended up looking like.

Despite the success of Super Metroid on SNES, the series wouldn't produce follow-ups until 2002's Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion, released on Gamecube and Game Boy Advance, respectively. Metroid director Yoshio Sakamoto explained in an old archived interview that he couldn't think of a good way to bring the series to N64 and even tried to outsource its development to a third-party developer, but was turned down.

Now, thanks to indie game developer Luto Akino, we can see what a Metroid 64 might've looked like. The fan-made, very unofficial project is still an early work-in-progress, but you can already see a gloriously polygonal Samus Aran rolling around a fairly built-out area shooting at things. You can also hear some sound effects and atmospheric music that sounds perfectly in place with everything else.

A pair of older videos reveal Samus turning into a ball and show the project's targeting system:

Akino even drew up a plot summary for their would-be Metroid 64, which tells the story of Samus and a squadron from the Galactic Federation crash landing on a hostile planet after being attacked by a gang of space pirates. Akino says the story takes place before the first Metroid game and doesn't interfere with official Metroid canon. It's pretty standard Metroid fare, but it's well thought-out for a game which seems inevitably bound for takedown by Nintendo's ever-watchful legal team. If anything, it's just the thing to follow in the wait for Metroid Prime 4.

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