Mike Wikan

This article is written from the Real Life point of view

“	I am finishing up making Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii right now. It is the final installment of the FPS/A series(First Person Shooter/Adventure). We have it tuned so it is nearly as easy as a Mouse/Key combo with the added benefit of being able to sit on your couch and play. Each developer is probably going to have a different take on it until we decide on the "Best Feeling" solution. We take it a bit farther than a mouse keyboard can, though. For instance, you can walk up to a handle and using the movement of the controller twist and pull it into position to activate something. Your hand movement mirrors the movement of the Wii controller.	„
—Mike Wikan on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption[1]

Mike Wikan participating in the Developer's Voice featurette for Trilogy.

Michael "Mike" Wikan is an American video game designer and developer. He served as Senior Game Designer at Retro Studios for eleven years, leading the design of Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Wikan was later part of a four person team converting the three games into the Metroid Prime Trilogy, and was the only member to have been involved in the development of all three games. He also led the design of Donkey Kong Country Returns. Wikan departed from Retro in 2011 and is currently the Creative Director at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Biography

Wikan is a classically trained fine artist who first entered into the world of video game development in 1993, when he began working as a Concept Artist for n-Space, later moving into the role of Lead Game Designer when he taught himself to create models. He worked there until 1997, when he left and joined Infogrames as a Lead Game Designer. Wikan departed from Infogrames in 2000 to join Retro Studios.

Metroid Prime series

Wikan has described the Prime series as a "labor of love", and said that he was greatly influenced by the Valérian and Laureline comic series while working on Prime. After the original game was released, a fan showed Wikan her Prime tattoo. At one point during development, he and Karl Deckard had a graph paper map of the entire game in their shared office. Wikan was responsible for prototyping and laying out the game's levels, designing the artificial intelligence and bosses, and scripting.

Because of the working conditions in the final nine months of Prime's development, Wikan was among a number of employees planning to leave. He had two job offers from rival companies. The change in leadership after Prime from Steve Barcia to Michael Kelbaugh led to a drastically improved work culture.

Wikan and Kynan Pearson gave interviews to issue 4 of the fan Switch Player Magazine regarding their wishes for Metroid Prime 4. Wikan was pleased when it was announced that Prime 4 was restarting development under Retro, and remarked that at least three designers from the original series still worked there.

Subsequent career

In 2011, Wikan left Retro Studios to work at id Software on what eventually became the 2016 reboot of Doom, and then at E-Line Media as a Design Director on Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa). In between these roles, he ran a design consulting business. Wikan is currently the Creative Director at Booz Allen Hamilton in San Antonio, Texas. He regularly speaks at conferences dealing with innovative and experiential technologies, such as xTech in San Francisco, California. Additionally, Wikan has been a board member of the HOFT Institute in Austin since 2019.

List of credits

“	I had the pleasure of working with Mike on Metroid Prime at Retro Studios. Mike is a solid designer who really knows his craft. He is smart, affable, and always willing to go the extra mile to make a game awesome. I recommend Mike as he would be a major asset to any team out there.	„
—Tony Giovannini

• TigerShark (1997), GT Interactive Software Corp.
• Duke Nukem: Time to Kill (1999) GT Interactive Software Corp.
• Slave Zero (2000), Infogrames Europe SA
• Metroid Prime (2002), Nintendo of America Inc.
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004), Nintendo of America Inc.
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007), Nintendo of America Inc.
• Metroid Prime Trilogy (2009), Nintendo of America Inc.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010), Nintendo of America, Inc.
• Never Alone (2014), E-Line Media.

Trivia

• GSGT C. Benet's original name in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was M. Wikan, a reference to Wikan.
• Wikan preferred the German box art of Echoes over the American version, which he felt was the "least attractive" of what he had seen at the time.
• Wikan's favorite Suit was the Dark Suit.
• Clark Wen would use Wikan as a foil when fine-tuning the sound of Prime to match the environment and gameplay events.
• Wikan worked on the pitch for the concept of a light and dark world in Echoes with Paul Reed, who came up with the idea.
• Wikan grew up in a military family, learning the concept of friction, in which two opposing forces meet each other on the battlefield. During development of Prime, his knowledge of war tactics was helpful in designing the battles with Space Pirates.
• He supports filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts' interest in directing a live-action Metroid film.
• In 2020, Wikan commented that he thought Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order heavily reminded him of Corruption.
• Wikan makes a cameo on track 10 of Harmony of a Hunter Returns, "Prophecy of the Forgotten", voicing the Artifact of Sun hint.
• In February 2023 Wikan claimed that only he and three other people worked on Metroid Prime Trilogy.

Gallery

April 5, 2015: "Back in 2000 I was doing the initial pass of level layouts for Metroid Prime. This was one of the scribbles in my notebooks exploring a room idea I had. It survived in a modified form in the final game.
Just found this long lost illo in an old sketchbook."

April 5, 2015: "Found one more Relic from my Metroid Prime days. This was my original Sheegoth sketch as I was working out how it should act in the game." This was drawn as an idea for the concept team, who changed the design.

External links

• Wikan on LinkedIn
• Wikan on MobyGames
• Wikan on Thingiverse
• Developer's Voice
• xTech 2017
• KIWI TALKZ interview