United Kingdom, Jan. 4 -- Nintendo has defended its decision to keep Metroid Prime 4: Beyond's controversial open-world hub, saying reversing course was impossible after the project had already been rebooted once.

Nintendo said early development was shaped by online sentiment following the success of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Speaking in an interview with Famitsu, the studio said: "At the start of the project . we saw a lot of comments on the internet saying, 'we want to play an open-world Metroid.'"

That ambition clashed with what Nintendo describes as Metroid's defining mechanic.

Nintendo said: "Metroid's core element of 'increasing the amount of explorable areas by unlocking powers' is not very compatible with the 'f...