When Metroid Prime: Federation Force was unveiled, it was met with so much backlash. Many gamers had never seen so much vitriol and hate directed at a game with moments of it being announced. But there was always the chance for Nintendo to win them over – after all, if the game was actually good, people would buy it then, right? Well, it looks like in this instance, Metroid fans really DID speak with their wallets this time, at least in Japan.
According to Famitsu, the 3DS FPS only sold 4286 copies within its first week, absolutely trailing behind the likes of No Man’s Sky (which sold 15,977 units) and King of Fighters XIV (which sold 23,242 units).
And if you think that’s bad, in the United Kingdom, it didn’t even break into the all-format software charts, coming under much older titles like New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Tomodachi Life. Some outlets are already writing the title off as a flop.
Reviews, meanwhile, have been average at best. On Metacritic, it holds an average score of 65/100.
Whether all this will lead to Nintendo taking the Metroid series back to its roots or just dumping the series in the same pit they put F-Zero and Earthbound in remains to be seen.
