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Retro would love to work on the Metroid series again, but it's not currently doing so. Though many expected a move to HD would lure Retro back to the franchise that made it famous, Retro president Michael Kelbaugh told me in an interview that his team felt Donkey Kong Country

"Well, we love Metroid. We love Metroid Prime and we always will. It was a big part of our studio, the culture of the studio. The majority of that team is still at Retro," Kelbaugh said. "When we finished with DK, we still had a lot of really cool ideas. That, in combination with what the Wii U could do, we really wanted to continue with that. Again, Retro Studios loves Metroid. We might do another one someday. But we really enjoyed working with DK as well."Of course, many Nintendo fans refuse to give up hope, and might assume that Retro is working on both Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and some sort of Metroid project. While the developer certainly might have ideas, and could be doing some tests, it won't be working on two major projects simultaneously."We’re pretty much on one major project at a time. We do a game every two years or three years," Kelbaugh said. "In the first year of that, we have some extra bandwidth, so sometimes… We helped out with Mario Kart 7. We helped Monster Games do the 3DS version. Sometimes we’ll have a little bit of extra bandwidth to help out other entities at Nintendo. We really feel strongly about helping out Nintendo as a whole, so if we have time, we’ll do that. Do we have the bandwidth to do two major projects at once? I don’t think so. A big project and a little project at the same time, we can do that."So Retro is working on Tropical Freeze. It doesn't have two teams working on two major projects, even though it might be interested in returning to Metroid one day. What, then, is the future of Samus Aran's intergalactic adventures? I turned to Kensuke Tanabe, an Executive Officer at Nintendo, and the man responsible for producing Retro's games, including the Metroid Prime series."Basically I’m thinking of, not just Samus, but how we can expand the whole Samus universe," Tanabe said. "You remember Metroid Prime Hunters. I’m thinking about things like how we could make that go out further, with all these different bounty hunters as well."Stay tuned to IGN for more from my conversation with Tanabe, Kelbaugh and Tropical Freeze producer Risa Tabata.

Rich is an Executive Editor at IGN, running around E3 2013 like crazy, playing the Nintendos and trying his best not to fall asleep. Keep an eye out on IGN for more of his Nintendo coverage - or yell at him on Twitter @RichIGN.