Nintendo's stinking "nap room" for overworked devs haunted legendary Super Metroid director for years: "It’s quite sad only having these kinds of memories!"

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{ "lede": "Yoshio Sakamoto, director of the 1994 classic Super Metroid, has recalled the gruelling final months of development, describing a foul-smelling nap room at Nintendo's old headquarters that was often too full for exhausted staff to use. The revelation, drawn from a 2009 interview republished in Retro Gamer, highlights the harsh working conditions behind one of gaming's most revered titles.", "body": "In an interview originally published in the July 2009 issue of Retro Gamer magazine and recently republished, Sakamoto detailed the punishing crunch that defined the final six months of Super Metroid's development. During that period, he said he "didn't know where I lived any more," as Nintendo's former Higashiyama headquarters "became like a boarding house for the Super Metroid team." The building contained a nap room where overworked developers could sleep, but it was often full, leaving Sakamoto with no place to rest and no time to go home.\n\nSakamoto recalled the experience with a smile and laughter, but he acknowledged the sadness of the memory, saying, "It's quite sad only having these kinds of memories!" The story has resurfaced at a time when the games industry increasingly views crunch culture as a serious problem, making the anecdote a stark reminder of the human cost behind classic games. Super Metroid, released in 1994 for the Super NES, is widely celebrated for its intricate world design, atmospheric storytelling, and tight mechanics, cementing its legacy as one of the greatest games ever made.\n\nThe nap room itself was described as "stinking," adding a visceral detail to the cramped, stressful conditions. Sakamoto's account offers a rare glimpse into the development of a Nintendo masterpiece, contrasting the polished final product with the chaotic, sleep-deprived reality of its creation. The interview was republished in the Mini SNES Companion book bundled with Retro Gamer #287, bringing the story to a new audience.\n\nCoverage of the story has been consistent across outlets, with no conflicting accounts reported.", "points": [ "Super Metroid director Yoshio Sakamoto recalled a six-month crunch period where he rarely went home.", "Nintendo's old Higashiyama headquarters had a nap room for overworked staff, but it was often full.", "The nap room was described as 'stinking,' and Sakamoto said the memory is 'quite sad.'", "The interview originally appeared in Retro Gamer magazine in 2009 and was recently republished." ] }

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Nintendo's stinking "nap room" for overworked devs haunted legendary Super Metroid director for years: "It’s quite sad only having these kinds of memories!"

GamesRadar+ · Dustin Bailey · Aug 15, 2026, 5:00 PM

You can't have a conversation about the greatest game of all time without discussing Nintendo's 1994 Super NES classic, Super Metroid. The game's intricate world design, alien atmosphere, and robust play mechanics cemented it as an instant classic, and its reputation and influence have only grown since then. Its development, however, sounds like it was a bit of a nightmare.

"During the final six months of development I didn't know where I lived any more," director Yoshio Sakamoto recalled in an interview for the July 2009 issue of Retro Gamer magazine. We republished that interview in 2021, and portions of it recently appeared in the Mini SNES Companion book packed in with Retro Gamer #287.

During Super Metroid's development, Nintendo was still located at its previous headquarters in Higashiyama. That building "became like a boarding house for the Super Metroid team," according to Sakamoto. "It got to the stage where I really don't remember going home at all! There was a nap room where it was okay to sleep, but sometimes it was full [of sleeping, overworked Super Metroid staff] – those were the worst times, when I wanted to sleep but couldn't, and I didn't have time to go home!"

Sakamoto was apparently smiling and laughing while telling this story, but these days, when game industry crunch is rightly seen as a scourge, it's a lot more difficult to find the humor in it. But, well, I guess the guy who led Super Metroid has earned the right to feel however he wants to feel about the game's development.

Fighting Kraid, a gigantic dinosaur-like boss, in Super Metroid — (Image credit: Nintendo)

"There were always between ten and fifteen of us in the office through the night, so we had to take naps in turns. The nap room wasn't being cleaned or looked after at all, because we were always using it; one morning staff from another area came to wake us up and told us that the room smelled like a zoo. Another Nintendo employee put a room freshener in the nap room, but that only made the place pong even worse. Everyone in Nintendo gave us funny looks," Sakamoto said with a laugh. "It's quite sad having only these kinds of memories!"

For my fellow Americans – "pong" is apparently slang for a bad smell, as I've recently learned from my British colleagues. While Sakamoto seems to wear the bad smells and ridiculous hours as something of a badge of pride, Nintendo legend Gunpei Yokoi wasn't so happy with the way the team was approaching the game.

"Yokoi-san, who at the time was my section chief and who always had fresh ideas, was always angry when he saw us all completely absorbed and working crazy overtime on Super Metroid," Sakamoto explained. "He came in and said, 'Are you lot trying to produce a work of art or something?' [Laughs] But this was an epic and we were already way past our deadline, and it seemed we were getting progressively further from our objectives – Yokoi-san was becoming angrier with us day by day during that period."

But in the end, Yokoi was as enamored with Super Metroid as the rest of the gaming world. "When other developers brought their action games to Nintendo," Sakamoto recalled, "he'd always compare them with Super Metroid and invariably ended up recommending the third-party developer to 'go away and play Super Metroid.' That's how fond he was of our game. I suppose this is a better memory than the smelly nap room anecdote."

Super Metroid ranks high on our list of the best SNES games of all time.

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Nintendo's stinking "nap room" for overworked devs haunted legendary Super Metroid director for years: "It’s quite sad only having these kinds of memories!"

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Nintendo's stinking "nap room" for overworked devs haunted legendary Super Metroid director for years: "It’s quite sad only having these kinds of memories!"

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