The prayers of so many gamers were finally answered by Nintendo during Tuesday’s E3 2017 Nintendo Direct!

The Metroid franchise is returning, with not one – but TWO huge titles!

The first announcement took place during Nintendo’s Direct presentation. A simple black screen faded into a star field. A cluster of stars forms together to form a familiar S insignia: The symbol of Samus!

Then a 4 appeared on screen to herald the confirmation that Metroid Prime 4 is in development! No release date, or even release year was mentioned, however, the confirmation that the game exists will undoubtedly be welcome news for a lot of us.

There is a caveat though: According to IGN, Metroid Prime 4 is not being developed by Retro Studios. Although the game reportedly retains the series original producer, Kansuke Tanebe, the team responsible is what Nintendo’s Bill Trinen called, “a talented new developer”.

Trinen did not elaborate on who the new developer for Metroid Prime 4 would be, which invites two interesting observations.

First would be if Retro Studios isn’t working on Metroid Prime 4, then what the heck are they working on?

Second is the observation that whomever this new developer is, they are inheriting the same position that the fledgling Retro Studios was in when prior to the release of the original Metroid Prime back in 2002.

It’s pretty clear that Nintendo is no where near being ready to talk in-depth about Metroid Prime 4, so we’ll just have to be patient as we wait for more details to eventually come out.

Still, it’s a relief to know that Nintendo hasn’t forgotten about Metroid, and it gives players even more reasons to try and snag a Switch.

Are you excited to know that Metroid Prime 4 is in development? Shout things at us in the comments section below.

Be sure to check out the rest of NerdBacon’s E3 2017 coverage right here!