Nintendo have announced in an official statement that the development on their hotly anticipated title Metroid Prime 4 has been completely restarted.

Coming from Shinya Takahashi - Senior Managing Executive Officer at Nintendo, he explains that "the current development progress has not reached the standard we seek in a sequel to the Metroid Prime series" citing this as the main reason for the decision which has been made and one which certainly hasn't been taken lightly.

He also thanks fans for their continued excitement and support while asking for understanding during this undoubtedly pivotal time in the games development.

Check out the full video below...

While this news will likely come as a bit of a shock to any Nintendo fans who were hoping to play Metroid Prime 4 in 2019 (not actually confirmed) it's fair to say that this new direction is for the best ultimately as with producer Kensuke Tanabe now working alongside Retro Studios to deliver a game that in Takahashi's own words "will stand shoulder to shoulder with the past Metroid Prime series titles" it's hard to see how the game could come close to being anything less than spectcular when it eventually releases.

Personally as a long time fan of the series, this is the best piece of game related news so far in 2019 and although it's a shame that we won't see Samus on the Switch in a new Metroid Prime title for a while, it does seem that rumours at least are pointing towards Metroid Prime Trilogy being re-released in some capacity in addition to the possibility of seeing more Metroid games sooner rather than later.

It already has me thinking back to when the original Metroid Prime came out on the GameCube many years ago with Metroid Fusion releasing on the Game Boy Advance at around the same time, so it would be interesting to see if something similar might take place here and at the very least all of this news signifies just how important the Metroid franchise is to Nintendo overall.

What do you make of this latest news? Are you happy at the long-term prospect of Metroid Prime 4? Or perhaps a little dismayed at the delay which will be caused by this major shift in development.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or join in with the discussion on our forum.