Whenever a Nintendo game gets a splashy reveal in a Direct, my immediate hype takes on a few forms. I’ll replay the trailer at least once, then I’ll start going frame by frame. I scour Nintendo’s websites for concrete information, then I read up on Reddit comments and theories to see what other people noticed that I might have missed. And then, I watch the trailer yet again. But almost every single time, my brain lands on the same question: Who the hell made this thing?
The most recent catalyst for this vicious hype cycle was Metroid Ravenous, a game that looks remarkably like 2021’s Metroid Dread. That game was made in collaboration with Spanish studio MercurySteam, but I saw no mention of that company anywhere in Nintendo’s promotional materials immediately after the reveal. Being the inquisitive and nosy neurodivergent person that I am, my mind subsequently went down a rabbit hole, contemplating why Nintendo is so averse to talking about this.
Nintendo’s devoted fanbase is many things, but one constant is that fans will never stop being curious. They are always seeking out specifics, no matter how trivial the subject, from the nuances of the Zelda timeline to whatever Mario’s current occupation is. With Nintendo often being a secretive company, the lack of information it provides only intensifies fans’ thirst for knowledge. And for whatever reason, Nintendo is particularly tight-lipped–arguably now more than ever–about which specific studios are behind its titles.
This has long been the case for Nintendo, but discussions over who is making what in Nintendo’s portfolio have increased over time. In the lead-up to the release of Princess Peach: Showtime in 2024, talk amongst enthusiasts about the game was dominated by speculation on who was developing it, rather than the content of the game itself. Nintendo was oddly evasive about the subject, saying that players needed to look at the game’s credits to find that out. (It turns out, as datamines indicated, it was frequent Nintendo partner Good-Feel.) The same happened months prior, when it took some sleuthing to figure out who made the Super Mario RPG remake (ArtePiazza, in that case).
While this is purely speculative, I can take a guess as to why Nintendo takes this approach. When Nintendo reveals a new game, the company wants you to see it as a Nintendo game–not an Intelligent Systems title, or a Grezzo production, or a HAL Laboratory original. By framing it as such, Nintendo is presumably hoping that you do away with preconceptions relating to the developers’ previous games and make a judgment on the game once you actually play the final product.
That practice has the potential to save some consumers from certain pitfalls; for instance, it could avoid pre-release discourse centering on the studio’s track record instead of the game itself. That type of dialogue could lead to people unfairly evaluating a game before it’s even out. I know I would be mortified if someone prematurely judged Next Level Games’ titles solely based on its work on the ill-fated Metroid Prime: Federation Force.
It’s also a way for Nintendo to strengthen its brand. Being a Nintendo-published game comes with some level of shine and prestige, no matter who made it. When a Nintendo game succeeds, no matter if it was a partner studio or one of the company’s in-house and generically named EPD studios, you can owe it to Nintendo’s special touch. And when one fails, then Nintendo can own the mistake instead of the studio.
But as the years have passed, Nintendo appears to be deemphasizing its subsidiary studios and its development partners, and there’s a magic that’s lost as a result.
There’s a sense of joy I got from some of Nintendo’s GameCube-era titles, which featured the developers behind those games loudly and at the very start. Whether it was Waluigi yelling “CAMELOT!” in Mario Power Tennis or Daisy screeching “NEXT LEVEL GAMES!” before Super Mario Strikers, the pride and passion from these studios was palpable.
I always enjoyed how the original three Metroid Prime games opened with “Nintendo and Retro Studios present” before the title screen, highlighting how essential the talent from Retro was to these games. Fast forward to Metroid Prime 4 in 2025, which shortens that vanity card to “Nintendo Presents,” as if it’s ashamed to acknowledge its Austin-based affiliate studio. I can’t even find the Retro Studios logo on the back of the box. At most, you’ll see studio names like Intelligent Systems or Monolith Soft in the copyright notice at the bottom of the title screen.
And while you don’t want potential customers to be stuck with preconceptions based on who’s making a game, more information is always better for making informed decisions. I want to know if Good-Feel is making a new Yoshi game, because that studio excels in crafting unique art styles. I want to know if Next Level is making a new Luigi’s Mansion, because the folks there are particularly great at making expressive character animations. I want to know if MercurySteam is behind a new Metroid (which appears to be the case for Ravenous), because while that studio makes a damn good Metroid, it also caught flak for not crediting certain developers, received accusations of crunch and intimidation, and recently underwent layoffs.
Nintendo is always going to do things its way–it wouldn’t be Nintendo if it weren’t. But the least it can do is give its fans a better idea of what they’re getting.