2010–present: Donkey Kong Country series, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and other projects
In April 2008, Retro saw the departure of three key developers, designer Mark Pacini, art director Todd Keller, and principal technology engineer Jack Mathews,[26] who went on to form their own company, Armature Studio.[27][28] Around the same time, Shigeru Miyamoto asked fellow producer Kensuke Tanabe to recommend a studio that could develop a new Donkey Kong game, and Tanabe recommended Retro. Kelbaugh had worked on the Donkey Kong Country series during his years at Nintendo of America, and had interest in continuing with the franchise. Retro accepted the task, and thus started development of Donkey Kong Country Returns.[29][30] Similar to New Super Mario Bros., the game was developed with the intention to invoke nostalgic feelings in the player with its art style and sound, while trying to provide them with new gameplay experiences.[30] Returns employs fully polygonal 3D graphics with three times the amount of textures and polygons that Corruption offered,[29] and over the course of six months, two thirds of the game's tools and engine had to be rewritten by the programmers.[29] Development accelerated at the outset of 2010, and the project was just "beginning to cohere as a game" around the time of E3, when it was officially announced to the press.[31] Although the game was set for release in autumn that year, the team still had 70 levels to create or refine.[32]
At E3 2011, it was announced during Nintendo's Developer Roundtable that Retro Studios would be involved in the development of Mario Kart 7 for Nintendo 3DS.[33] At first, Retro would contribute assets to developing one of the Donkey Kong-themed levels,[34] but the number evolved to the stage design of sixteen tracks in the late stages of development, as the Nintendo EAD crew started working on other projects and the game would not be finished before the December 2011 deadline.[35]
In 2012, it was revealed that Retro Studios had received a Wii U development kit, and was reportedly working on a Wii U game.[36] Miyamoto has said he would like to work with Retro Studios in an installment for The Legend of Zelda; however, he says that the current game Retro Studios was working on is not related to Zelda.[37] At E3 2012, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé told IGN in an interview that Retro is currently "hard at work" on an untitled project for the Wii U.[38]
On February 28, 2014, Kensuke Tanabe announced that Retro Studios was working on a new game, which CEO Michael Kelbaugh declared had been in development for a few months since Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was finished.[39] In August 2015 however, during an interview about Metroid Prime: Federation Force, Tanabe said that he was not quite sure about what Retro Studios was working on, leaving the impression that he was no longer involved with its unannounced project. Retro released an enhanced port of Tropical Freeze for the Nintendo Switch in 2018.[40]
Nintendo announced Metroid Prime 4 at E3 2017, showing only the logo. Shortly after the announcement, Bill Trinen, Director of Product Marketing at Nintendo of America, confirmed that Prime 4 would not be developed by Retro Studios, the studio that developed the previous Metroid Prime games, but would be produced by Kensuke Tanabe, the producer of the previous games.[41][42] In 2018, Eurogamer reported that Prime 4 was being developed by Bandai Namco Studios in Singapore.[43] However, in a video released on January 25, 2019, Nintendo EPD general manager Shinya Takahashi announced that Metroid Prime 4 had been delayed, and that development had been restarted with Retro Studios. Takahashi said that development under the previous studio had not met Nintendo's standards.[44] Nintendo's shares fell by 2.8 percent in the week following the announcement.[45]
During this time, Retro made some key hires to fill out the team. It brought on Halo character modeller Kyle Hefley in October 2019.[47] In January 2020, Stephen Dupree, lead designer of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, returned to the company after two years away.[48] In February 2020, EA DICE art director Jhony Ljungstedt joined Retro.[49]
On February 8, 2023, Nintendo announced and released Metroid Prime Remastered, an HD update to the 2002 original from Retro Studios.[50] It was later revealed that Retro had wanted to produce new cinematics for the game, but Nintendo chose to keep the originals. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was finally released in December 2025.[51]
