It’s been almost a decade since Metroid Prime 4 was announced. Nintendo revealed the game’s existence to the world back in 2017, and now that it’s nearing the end of 2025, the time has finally come for it to arrive. Scheduled to release on December 4th, I had the chance to get my hands on the game’s beginnings, getting an early look at the action-packed gameplay and new mechanics that will hopefully evolve the Metroid Prime formula.
Before we get into that, however, it’s worth noting that this preview doesn’t reach the open area featuring Samus’ bikes, called Vi-O-La. It ended just as we made our way to the area where the vehicle was available, but Nintendo did provide a quick explanation of what the area involves and how it’s set up. The best way to describe it is that it’s similar to Hyrule Field from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It’s an open land that you can travel around to reach various dungeons that you’ll need to visit to get the key to activate the teleporter in order to escape the “world” Samus is trapped in. Yes, it’s a pretty typical “enter a level and collect items” formula, but there’s the added caveat of Metroidvania-like progression, where there are secrets and extra content in each level that can only be earned as you discover and earn new abilities and upgrades.
Why is Samus trapped, you ask? Essentially, the story begins with Samus answering a distress call and is soon assigned to help a group of soldiers protect and evacuate a strange and powerful artifact from a besieged base. However, everything quickly falls apart when bounty hunter Sylux appears and proceeds to destroy artifacts, transporting Samus and those nearby to a mysterious new world.
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The place is Viewros, a distant planet with plenty of Pandora shades. The opening area of Viewros is a lush jungle filled with bioluminescent flora and dangerous fauna, all under the shade of a large tree that feels very similar to Hometree in Avatar. It’s in this area that you really start to fall back into Metroid style, as you wander around the different areas, defeating any threats that stand in your way, and encountering obstacles you can’t overcome…yet. You navigate, explore, and wander around until you find the right path, which gives you powerful upgrades to access previously inaccessible areas. This being a Metroid game, you’d expect a progression similar to Metroidvania, and even though it’s more scaled down and simpler than the original Metroid Prime or even Metroid Dread, there’s a lot of that here. This is just the opening taste though, so this may change over time.
Some of the abilities and upgrades Samus gains are simple and familiar, whether it’s missiles that shatter hardened surfaces or Psychic Bombs that can be placed in the form of Morph Balls. The main difference now, however, is that Samus was given psychic powers by an ancient race of Viewros (beings known as Lamorn), and with these powers, she can interact and manipulate certain areas of the world in a Force-like manner. It’s ultimately a fairly basic system, essentially an extension of the scanner tool that Metroid Prime veterans will be very familiar with.
So you collect abilities and upgrades and progress through the levels, discovering lore and information relevant to Samus’ situation. In that sense, it’s very traditional Metroid Prime, at least until you meet another fellow human, a soldier who’s been transported into the realm like Samus. For a brief moment, it had the signature isolation and silence of the beloved Metroid Prime games. Aside from the chirping and background sounds of the jungle, the only other noise that breaks the tranquility is the thump of Samus’ blaster, which, frankly, is exactly what you want from this new chapter in the series. This is also why having a fellow soldier who chats and screams when danger approaches may annoy many veteran Metroid Prime fans, as it’s essentially like giving Doom Slayer a Cortana-like companion that doesn’t let you embrace immersive moments.
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The action remains fluid and there are no kinks in the level structure. The depth of ability requires trials and tribulations to understand and master, and there are many secrets. The world design is stunning and colorful, the controls are smooth and responsive (even if the mouse controls could use some tweaking to be less cumbersome), and there’s a choice of two graphics modes, both of which work really well. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond isn’t a blazingly fast game, so you can comfortably play at 4K/60FPS while docked, or switch it up and lower the quality to embrace 120FPS. In my experience with them, both options work very well.
As a final note, it’s worth mentioning that there will be some great boss battles in this game that will require innovative solutions to overcome. During this session, I had the pleasure of facing two main enemies, one that simply required running and gunning while targeting obvious weak points to make them vulnerable, and one that required using one of Samus’ psychic powers to create a period of vulnerability. Both are fun and exciting, and if they’re a good example of what’s to come, the boss fight will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of the game.
That being said, I do think Metroid Prime 4: Beyond may look different to fans. If you’re not a die-hard Metroid fan (like me), someone who loves and enjoys the games but isn’t a fan of the series, there’s a lot to like about this game and it should make for a solid action experience. If Metroid is part of your personality, and you’ve been waiting with bated breath for this game for eight years, there are probably parts that make you uncomfortable and perhaps don’t live up to the high expectations set by past exceptional entries. Opinions on the game will vary, but beyond that, one thing that does stand out to me is that this doesn’t feel like a game that took eight years (at least) to develop, and it doesn’t feel like a real project that will be a real example of what the Switch 2 can bring to the table. It’s maybe a little safe and familiar, but it’s also a lot of fun, so like the entire Switch 2 era so far, even if you’ll have a great time with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, you probably shouldn’t expect to be blown away.
