Pacini spoke to Kotaku a couple of weeks ago from his office in Austin, Texas where it was briefly snowing. Pacini works on secret projects these days for his game development company Armature, a start-up formed by him and fellow former colleagues from Nintendo-owned Retro Studios. His known work is the Metroid Prime Trilogy, developed by Retro and a team from Nintendo's Japan offices and released on the Nintendo GameCube and Wii from 2002 through 2007.

Aramture's work remained secret in 2009, but the company's fortunes and return of the Metroid Prime series to the public eye with the Wii release of series compilation Metroid Prime: Trilogy allowed Pacini some professional and personal intersections with the gaming mainstream.

One of the bigger surprises for Pacini in 2009 was an ABC News story that aired online through ABCNews.com in October. In it, IGN's Michael Thomsen, who described the classic Orson Welles movie Citizen Kane's "symbiotic partner in the world of video games" to be that Metroid Prime trilogy Pacini worked on. "Orson Welles was using cinematography to express something very personal and human," Thomsen explained in the piece. "It wasn't just functional anymore. It was actually tied to a specific meaning about people aging, people dying, people not living up to their full potential. " The Prime games' presentation of a sole human warrior Samus Aran exploring dark and lonely worlds makes it a similarly exceptional work in its medium, the ABC piece argued. The game and the movie both dwell deeply into their protagonists' exploration for truth buried in the past.

While the Metroid Prime games are among the best-reviewed video games ever made, Pacini was surprised by the comparison. He wasn't interviewed for the ABC piece. It was sent to him by a friend. "I found out about it like everyone else did. Somebody sent an e-mail out saying, 'Look at this.' It was a WTF sort of thing… I honestly had a similar reaction to everyone else. It's flattering, and it's great, but I didn't get the comparison at all."

Pacini considers the Prime trilogy's achievement differently and in the context of both gaming's past and that of the formerly 2D pre-Prime Metroid series. "If I could say anything about Prime in terms of what I would think it would mean, I think we pushed the first-person genre a little bit and I think we were able to redefine a franchise in a positive light, bringing a game from 2D to 3D that wasn't expected. And thankfully it turned out OK."

As for that "Citizen Kane of Games" title, Pacini said he thinks that's the kind of thing that works for non-gamers. "For me, when I talk about games with my friends, we never compare games to movies," he said. "We compare games to games… I think if you're trying to describe games to someone who doesn't play, then movies are the perfect analogy. You say, 'Hey, it's like Terminator' or whatever and they get it. That comparison works more for people who don't speak the language of games." He's never heard a game developer say they hoped to make a Citizen Kane of video games.

Metroid Prime returned to Pacini's life in another way this year with the late summer release of the Wii compilation disc Metroid Prime Trilogy from Pacini's former co-workers at Retro and Nintendo. Fans often celebrate the opportunity to have a few favorite games in one package. But for a creator like Pacini that happiness was tempered by a bit of a sting.

"We thought it was awesome to see the games played with the Wii controls and, hopefully, have people pick it up who hadn't played it before. But it was also almost sad looking at this one box. This is eight years of my life in one box. ... I was really proud of my role that I played in it and the people I met and got to work with all those years. And then everything gets summed up in this little box."

The experience got Pacini thinking about years. Echoing something that BioShock lead creator Ken Levine said on a panel I co-hosted earlier this year, Pacini said that Trilogy compilation got him thinking about the amount of years he has left and the amount of games he has in them. "It's very eye-opening and at this point in my career, I really want to make sure that everything I work on is cool or important to me, because I don't have that many left in me. "

That said, Pacini can't talk about the games that he does have left in him, which is too bad for those who would like to know what the lead designer of three of gaming's best reviewed games is up to next. It sounds like part of the reason Armature's work remains secret is because Pacini, who loves the creative side of game development, has had to recently be more involved in the business side of things. He said he welcomed the opportunity to learn a new side of the industry, but that in 2009, the lessons were not that pleasant.

Working on the business side of things, he explained, exposed him to the state of the industry in '09. For those who have missed Kotaku's many stories about lay-offs and lowered sales, the news here is that that state is not good. " The industry got real shook up," Pacini said, referring to the many lay-offs. "There's a lot of things happening in terms of how projects get green-lit now. I hope you like games that are Blank of Blank 3 or Blank of Blank 7, because that's all that's going to be coming out for years. If it's not an established franchise or something that's sold already, publishers are a lot less likely to spend money on it and, I think, rightfully so since everyone is cutting back."

Here's what Pacini sees in his crystal ball: "I think 2010 is going to be awesome for games but 2011 is going to kind of suck. In 2011, you're going to see the results of what happened in 2009. You're going to see a lot of sequels, a lot of me-too products as a lot of cutbacks. Publishers are squeezing the number of new [intellectual properties] they're doing per year to a very small number."

Armature does have a future, Pacini happily notes. He seemed eager to elaborate more. But he can't. So leave it at that and cross your fingers that if gaming can be any better in the future, Mark Pacini will have something to do with it — even if he's no Orson Welles.

[Story images are from the Wii's Metroid Prime Trilogy]

It's IGN's Michael Thomsen that makes that argument, saying that the "dark and lonely world" of Welles' film is comparable to the environments presented in the Metroid Prime series. It's also the game's emphasis on exploration over combat and its reflection of Samus Aran's visage that helps to humanize the experience.

Maybe he's right. Metroid Prime is arguably the best GameCube game ever made. But is it as nearly universally praised by fans and critics of the medium, as Citizen Kane is in film? Does that even matter?

Where we might disagree—and not to take away from Retro Studios and Nintendo's work on the series—is on Metroid Prime's comparable technical and cinematographic accomplishments. Sure, Morph Balling in 3D works like a charm, but are they on par with Welles' and his crew's work? And does that matter?

And do we benefit in any way from the comparison?

Nintendo's Video Game Masterpiece [ABC via GoNintendo]

(For context, you need to know that Nintendo-owned Retro Studios, with involvement from Nintendo Kyoto-based producer Kensuke Tanabe, developed and released Metroid Prime in 2002 as well as two sequels in 2004 and 2007. The original Prime is one of the best-reviewed video games of all time. All three games were re-released on a compilation disc called Metroid Prime Trilogy this past summer. Retro has released no other video games. I asked this question as part of an e-mail interview with the makers of the games. Most of the interview ran in this Metroid Prime Trilogy post.)

Kotaku: Metroid Prime: Trilogy is only the second release from Retro since 2004. More significantly, Retro has released just one new game in five years. Why is that? And when can people expect to hear more about whatever Retro has next?

Michael Kelbaugh, president of Retro Studios: "To be fair, there's been a number of releases from Retro Studios since 2004. Metroid Prime 2 was launched worldwide in 2004 and 2005. Metroid Prime 3 was launched in late 2007 in the U.S. and Europe, 2008 in Japan, and the current launch of Metroid Prime: Trilogy, worldwide in 2009. Efforts and resources involved supporting NTSC, PAL and Japanese launches are considerable. That's been a busy schedule and it's kept us very engaged."

Bryan Walker, Retro's senior director of development: "As Michael noted, we've actually had a number of high-profile releases over the past several years. However, we're very fortunate to be a Nintendo developer. As such, we're not forced to release a game prematurely just to make a quarterly report look better. Quality is the first and foremost consideration in everything we do. Of course, we work very hard, and efficiency is always a goal, but every effort is made to ensure our fans take home a game that can stand alongside Nintendo's very best.

"We're also a rather small team, by current industry standards. We tend to focus only on one project at a time. The Trilogy project was a bit unusual for us, in that we had just a handful of people focusing on that while the majority of the studio was getting our next project off the ground. We may in the future grow to tackle multiple projects simultaneously, but only if our standard of quality can be maintained."

Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe: "Actually, localization requires much more time and workforce than you can imagine… Especially for the Prime series, it took more than the usual process of localization, as we had very long texts and worked even on features or parameters. Considering those conditions, how much have we and Retro worked in these five years? Please let me calculate:

"We have worked on six versions: North American, European and Japanese versions of Prime 2 and 3 … two versions of Prime 1 and 2 for Wii, which were released only in Japan … and the North American and European versions of Trilogy. We have worked on 10 different versions! Along with them, we had also worked on a demo on Wii, which was showcased at the Tokyo Game Show. Now you have a different impression, don't you?

"And the new title of Retro is of course, under development. Hopefully we can address some information in the next year."

Retro's rate of output is not that different from that of some other top-tier studios that have specialized in first-person games. Since the 2004 release of Halo 2, Bungie Studios has released Halo 3 (2007) and Halo 3: ODST (2009) and is currently working on the 2010 Halo: Reach. Valve's Half-Life team has released Half-Life 2 (2004) and two expansions in 2006 and 2007, with a third expected no sooner than next year. Retro's pace puts it behind Bungie but a little ahead of Valve.

Some studios take a while, but until Retro puts out a game that gets panned, it will hard to quibble with their pace. And, if you do, be careful. Kensuke Tanabe appears to be ready to prove you wrong.

Our interview was conducted over e-mail, with questions sent to Nintendo a few weeks ago and responded to by members of the Nintendo-owned Retro Studios in Austin, Texas as well as by the game's Japan-based producer, Kensuke Tanabe. The team had just finished the development of Metroid Prime Trilogy, a compilation of the two GameCube Metroid Prime games, the pioneering 2002 and 2004 first-person adventure gamesin the 23-year-old Metroid series, as well as their 2007 Wii sequel, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

The veteran Tanabe was the one who hinted at the future of Metroid Prime — a series that seemed to have concluded with the release of 2007's Corruption. Responding to a Kotaku question about whether the Metroid series has the potential for multiplayer popularity equal to GoldenEye's or Halo's, Tanabe said, "As all I take part in is the Prime series, I am not capable of commenting on the whole Metroid series. But we will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series. For instance, I think I can come up with some unique ideas using the Morph Ball, which is a specific skill of Samus."

That can of response will make a Metroid fan do a double-take. Tanabe's open consideration for more modes to a series thought by many fans had concluded is a tantalizing comment. Unfortunately, it is also a vague one, and one that Kotaku was unable to clarify due to the e-mail nature of the interview.

But as cagey as Tanabe was with that answer, he and Retro were generously specific in response to other Metroid inquiries.

Take jumping, for example.

How did Retro Studios manage to make — with the creation of 2002's Metroid Prime — arguably the first first-person video game with decent platform-jumping?

"One of the first considerations we had in developing the player package was how to make platforming approachable to the player," Retro's senior designer Mike Wikan told Kotaku over e-mail. "We experimented with many ideas, including having the camera pitch down a little after the jump apex, fields of view, standardized platform sizes and jump heights as well as player gravity to strike the right balance of approachability and positive tension. Once we locked those basic things down, we were able to build the rest of the game around it."

Tanabe explained even more tricks the team used to make platforming in Prime a pleasure: "As Mike just mentioned, we have discussed very, very carefully about the feature of jumping. We decided not to create jumps so high that Samus can only barely reach [them] or long valleys that Samus could jump, or to design footholds larger than our specific basis. At any rate, we solidified these standards by discussing with Retro about including an additional layer of safety, even in areas where we felt when playing the game ourselves that the jumps were doable. "

Platforming worked in Prime, allowing Retro's series to present, in first-person 3D, a version of the leaping actions that heroine Samus Aran performed in the original 2D Metroid games. Bit by bit, other staples of the 2D games made it into the Prime games, including Samus' mid-air attack-acrobatics known as the Screw Attack, which was implemented in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. One of the only 2D Metroid power-ups that didn't make it into Prime was the Speed Boost, a super-charged running ability that would allow Samus to dash through walls, exploding through dirt and rock-filled caves as if they were empty hallways. It's a cool ability that went missing.

"The Speed Boost was something we were interested in trying early on," Wikan told Kotkau, "But we found that limitations imposed by the scale of our environments — as well as the first-person player viewpoint — made that system less appealing. We discussed the possibility of developing something in third person that might work, but in the end determined that time spent developing that system would take away from so many other things we felt might be better explored."

The Speed Boost wasn't the team's only experiment with series features that was tricky to implement. The developers told Kotaku that they had considered making Samus' ship a more prominent aspect in Prime. The third game, which begins with the player, as Samus, piloting her vessel, was originally going to take that concept further. "Early in development of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption we played with the notion of making the ship a whole system of similar impact to the game as, say, the Morph Ball," Wikan said. "After discussions with [Tanabe's Nintendo development group in Japan] SPD and more thought on Retro's part, we felt that, while the ship was going to be an important part of the game (with the utilization of the command visor), it might take too much of the focus away from Samus and her struggle against the Space Pirates and Dark Samus."

Tanabe elaborated on this one too: "At the time we launched the Prime 3 project, we at Nintendo proposed that Retro plan a game system where the game takes place centered on the space ship, and they gave us ideas accordingly. On the other hand, we and Retro had agreed not to develop another game mode like a shooter in the space ship, which would take us a significant amount of work, as large as making another game title. With many discussions we reached the conclusion that we need a brand new system for this final chapter of the trilogy, and decided to use Hyper Mode utilizing Phazon as a pillar of the game play."

The developers of the Prime games had some unusual priorities. They were developing first-person games that many people would call first-person shooters. But, noted Wikan, "in those games our primary consideration was player movement and jumping in the environment so that they could more easily explore it. Shooting was a very important, though secondary, consideration." He noted that Retro is still proud of the original target-lock-on control scheme that didn't allow players to aim freely. It was featured in the original GameCube editions of the first two Prime games. The Wii release of Trilogy does away with those controls, in favor of the point-and-shot system of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Tanabe said the original scheme was ideal for the GameCube controller and that the Corruption and Trilogy method best suits the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

The Metroid series will continue with 2010's Metroid: Other M, a Nintendo and Tecmo joitn project which involves one of Metroid's original creators, Yoshio Sakamoto, but neither Tanabe nor Retro. Despite their lack of involvement in this next game, the Prime creators spoke proudly of what they added to the series. "The expansion into fully three-dimensional exploration was obviously the most important element," Wikan said, "But it also added a great deal of character and depth to many of the creatures and themes explored in early Metroid games through the Scan Visor system. The Space Pirates, for instance, were given a great deal of character as well as a more unified intent in the series. In addition, the Metroid Prime series explored a great deal of new territory regarding the Federation and the Metroid universe as a whole, with the inclusion of new races like the Luminoth and the Ing. "

Wikan would like to see more of Metroid Prime 3's Galactic Federation and the Space Pirates in future Metroid projects and is hopeful that the visor system and enhanced grapple beam will "live on as well."

As for the Prime team's future, Retro has been working on a new mystery game. While the studio still focuses on a single project at a time, it was able to create Trilogy on the side with just a "handful of people," according to the studio's senior director of development, Bryan Walker. Retro isn't offering hints about what the next game will be. Said Tanabe, "Hopefully we can address some information in the next year."

Pacini was quoted last summer that the Retro Studios team would be taking a break from all things Metroid, but may not have had any idea how permanent it would be for some. There have been no announcements about the Nintendo-owned, Austin-based studio's next project, but wherever the recently departed wind up maybe they'll get to put some guns on some cars.

Key Metroid Prime Staff Leave Retro Studios [Shacknews]

He leaves behind a wife and two daughters. Mark Haigh-Hutchinson was 43.

Famed Industry Veteran, Retro Studios Programmer Dies [IGN]

Harrison stated that the current market leader is instead looking to third parties such as Ubisoft and EA to appeal to non-Japanese gamers. The future plans of Retro are currently unknown, but N-Space was reported to be knee deep in Wii development some 18 months ago.

Nintendo: 'No Plans' To Increase Western Game Development [Game|Life]

From the original Metroid Prime to Echoes to Corruption, some great internal-only moments are revealed. That first hands-on with the Nintendo "Revolution"? I'd have been giddy, too.

Gamasutra has a fantastic write up of the session, which fans of Metroid shouldn't miss.

MIGS 2007: Retro Studios On The Journey Of Metroid Prime [Gamasutra]

The latest Metroid Prime 3: Corruption preview clips added to WiiWare in tandem with the latest Wii firmware update give us a better look at one potential returning Metroid staple. The "Aurora"—more commonly known as the Mother Brain to Metroid and Super Metroid fans—is heavily featured in one of the clips, indicating that a starring role (or at least a cameo) for the organic computer is more than likely.

What's even more interesting is that we may even see multiple Auroras, as the narrator explains that the old school Tourian bitch is just one of many Mother and Father Brains. It's confirmed: My interest in Metroid Prime 3 has never been so high.

On the subject of when we'll see the next Metroid Prime? Possibly never. While "there's no way they're going to put [the Metroid IP] to bed" this installment does signal the end of the Prime series, wrapping up the planned trilogy of games.

The full interview contains far more information on the game, including the multiple control schemes, but sadly features no mention of a playable Samus in Zero Suit form.

Q&A: Online play not happening in Metroid Prime 3 [GamePro]