During a Metroid interview yesterday with series director Yoshio Sakamoto and Team Ninja producer Yousuke Hayashi, we slipped in a question that was not about the newly announced Metroid: Other M.

Well, we thought it might be related.

For a few years, there have been rumors that Nintendo was working on a new side-scrolling Metroid game called Metroid Dread. There was even an easter egg reference to entities known as "Metroid Dreads" tucked into Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

So, we wondered, could the long-incubating Metroid: Other M, which we learned was conceived in 2006, be the Dread project?

"He's very familiar with that [game,]" Sakamoto's translator said after posing our question to him. "No, this is different."

We pressed for details on what Dread is. Sakamoto's response: "The day may come when Dread hits the stores, but this one is something that's completely different. This is other M."

Experiment status report update: Metroid project 'Dread' is nearing the final stages of completion.

When CVG asked Nintendo about their apparent easter egg, they responded killjoy-style:

Nintendo is not making the 2D Metroid at this point in time.

I just wish my heart would listen.

Nintendo denies Metroid Dread [cvg]