Skip to content

Metroid Prime Ran On Unreal Engine 2

It has been revealed by a poster over at the Assembler Games forums that the fantastic Metroid Prime for the Gamecube ran on Epic’s Unreal Engine 2. Apparently the game that was developed by Retro Studios ran on a very heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 2.

Metroid Prime runs on a very heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 2. You can certify this to yourself by looking at the text box next to Asset_CMDL_EditorModel. Notice the word “/cooked/” in there.

For those of you who have worked with the Unreal Engine, you’ll know what this is, else, you might wanna read. Cooking is a term for compiling all of the maps, scripts, materials, etc. you’ve made into one usable executable, or “game”. It was used primarily for consoles, although now support has come out for PC cooking, resulting in faster loading times.

They also used Unreal’s level streaming feature. This is highly detailed in Unreal Engine 3, but was also present in 2. It’s funny how Retro got a private license for this stuff yet never sought to bring it out.

I also can confirm some UnrealScript source files exist on disk, which I am attempting to extract. Will probably branch this off into a separate thread for loads of fun and wackiness.

76 thoughts on “Metroid Prime Ran On Unreal Engine 2”

        1. you mean unreal lightmass, a global illumination solver. it provides high quality STATIC lighting with effects (penumbra, defusion, specular reflection, color bleeding).

    1. CryEngine is better imo.
      Just check Crysis2 running on PC, looks gorgeous, and it fits with the Metroid Prime series

  1. ALL THE MEXICANS CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES. ESTUPIDOS MEJICANOS DE MIERDA IROS A CAGAR PUTOS GORILAS. OS MATARIA A TODODS IMBECILES DE MIERDA COMENTAD A PAGINAS DE VUESTRO PUTO MIERDOSO PAIS!

        1. i don’t know what your problem is against us. but not everyone that speaks Spanish is Mexican. what you are saying is racist and very wrong you gotta stop it before is too late. and sir if you are reading this please as the first and only time i ask. can you please band this guy please? u_u

          1. I think you´re from Spain man, and…if you hate Spanish why you know the language? And c´mon man you´re saying this ’cause you´re behind a keyboard, you’re a real faggot

    1. CryEngine doesn’t have the range and history of support as the Unreal Engine does. But, yeah, I agree, there needs to be more love since the CryEngine 3 is being utilized in a wide variety of projects.

      1. You are very, very mistaken. CryENGINE didn’t become an engine that Crytek licensed until roughly 2008, 3 years after the release of RE4. RE4 used its own, proprietary engine (which I believe was also used for God Hand, another great Capcom game) until it was released for the iPhone, where it used the MascotCapsule eruption engine.

  2. I wish metroid got alot more love. No one except the most dedicated fans said happy 25th birthday on 2011, it was all zelda zelda zelda. They made 2 games and already released the news for a 3rd, the least nintendo couldve done was base the Wii U demo on metroid instead of zelda would’ve looked better

    1. I played Prime for the first time over the summer and I absolutely loved it. I was completely addicted.

      Now I only have Echoes and Corruption left to beat; but the games are so long and intensive that I don’t really have the energy to go through it all again

    2. Agreed. Body suit of armor, flying dragons/pterodactyl, brain-sucking Metroids and outer space in general is better at showing off graphics and the Wii U’s potential.

    3. With Skyward Sword coming out, it made more sense for Zelda to be the complete focus of that E3 (though it did highlight that Skyward Sword’s graphics are only great for Wii standards). Hopefully Metroid is the focus of E3 2012. If it has given Retro time to perfect a demo or sort out a style, then whatever Retro are making will be the focus, and chances are it could be Metroid related.

  3. I Am The Yeti. You Are Scum

    One of the best games I’ve ever played. Too bad it’s never gonna stand up to Halo which it’s totally capable of.

  4. Uhm, On its release Unreal Tournament 2003 was one of the finest looking games out there.
    I dont remember Metroid looking that good or its just the fact that it was dark as night most of the time while UT2003 was bright and colorfull.

    1. Now that really is not true, technically, it was magnificent, looked accomplished and Hi-Res. It was atmospheric and they felt the need to leave out the bright colour pallet, mainly because it wasn’t UNREAL TOURNAMENT. Fool.

  5. Pingback: Metroid Prime funcionaba con la tecnología del Unreal Engine 2

    1. Do you even know what you’re talking about? Metroid Prime WAS all about the Gameplay! That is why it is respected amongst all it’s other mastery! A very well realised product. You should try playing some proper games some day.

  6. Pingback: Metroid Prime corría en Unreal Engine 2 | Atomix

  7. Dear God. Do you idiots bother to cross check anything or do you just make this stuff up. Do you know anything about anything? If you did, you’d know that the Metroid Prime series existed on it’s own tools and it’s own engine. There’s not a line of Unreal code in that entire series.

    You, my good man, are a tool that prints rubbish. Try researching your topic before you print it.

  8. Metroid Prime Wii U running on the CryEngine would be insane. Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t Vanquish run on that same engine? That Ageis suit in Vanquish is unbelievable. Imagine Samuel suit with even half the amount of detail that went into the

  9. I KNEW IT!!! I KNEW IT!!!

    I’ve been trying to find this out and be certain with this for a very long time, especially at the little details. Samus’ arm cannon movement as she walks is identical to that in the Unreal Engine 2 and/or early Unreal Engine 1, as well as dodging. Also, the Space Pirates seriously reminded me of the Skaarj & Mercenaries in Unreal, and the scan feature is similar to that of the Universal Translator in Unreal. Super Missiles = Eightball. Plasma Beam = ASMD Shock Rifle. Power Beam = Dispersion Pistol. Ice Beam arm cannon design = Pulse Gun design. Wave Beam (Super Missile) = Pulse Gun Alt. Fire.

    I can go on and on with this. I was actually thinking about making a video showing similarities between the two.

  10. This article is full of factual errors due to incorrect assumptions from someone who didn’t put forth the effort to research it.

    Unreal Engine 2 was NOT used in Metroid Prime, I’m one of the developers of an engine reimplementation for Metroid Prime and it’s not similar to UE by any stretch of the imagination. If “cook” is exclusive to UE, then so are textures, rigs, sounds, etc. Cooking is an industry term for preparing data for optimized consumption for the target platform. It’s been around since the 90s. Please post a retraction of this article.

    For details see https://github.com/AxioDL/urde

Discover more from My Nintendo News

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading