When Nintendo concluded its latest Direct presentation with the full reveal of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the world briefly became a bit buzzed as fans celebrated the glorious return of one of the company’s most revered franchises. finallySince first being announced in 2017, the Prime 4 is set to launch in 2025 and it looks like it’s going to be great.
While the vast majority reacted to the trailer with excitement and anticipation, some were disappointed due to the game’s similarity to previous Prime titles, both visually and in terms of gameplay.
Here’s the thing. I get it. I really get it. After seven years of waiting (or 18, if you’re like me), our imaginations are definitely starting to get the better of us, and after games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Bros. Wonder showed us just how far Nintendo was willing to stray from its tried-and-true formula, it’s fair to think that Prime 4 would mark a major evolution for a series that began in 2002.
Now, I’m not saying that developers should rest on their laurels and settle for the bare minimum — experimenting, pushing boundaries, and challenging player expectations is always a good thing — but with Prime 4, I think it’s important that we examine our own expectations and understand what this game is really about.
Let’s start by looking at the development time. There’s no doubt that Prime 4 was announced too soon. Few would argue that. While many of Nintendo’s first-party games these days are announced and released in just a few months, it’s been almost two years since Prime 4 was announced in June 2017. Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi confirmed that development has resumed. Developed from the ground up by Retro Studios.
So let’s break this down. If development began in January 2019, that means Prime 4 has been cooking in the oven for roughly five years now (the majority of which was likely also affected by the pandemic restrictions of 2020 and 2021). Twenty years ago, this seems highly unusual, but for big budget titles on 8th and 9th generation consoles, it’s now considered the norm. The only difference with Prime 4 is that we, the fans, have known about it for a long time ( The Elder Scrolls VIBethesda).
Many of you are probably reading this and thinking something like this: “Well, that’s our Is that a problem? You’re right. But what I want to explain is that when a game becomes famous and then becomes shrouded in secrecy (e.g. 7 yearsIt’s incredibly easy to let your expectations (in your mind) get inflated, and I’ve done it a few times myself.
It’s also inevitable that there’s growing speculation that Prime 4 might skip the Switch entirely and release on a successor console. An understandable conclusion, of course, but still unfounded. Nintendo has consistently classified Prime 4 as a Switch game and included it in its regular lineup in financial reports. I know companies love to exaggerate or do misleading things, but to outright lie about what platform Prime 4 will be releasing on? No, I don’t believe that. Prime 4 looks like a Switch game. teeth One. Even if it does end up being cross-gen, the Switch 2 version is just going to be a glossier version of what we have here.
Beyond that, it’s important to consider that Prime 4 is truly the fourth mainline entry in an ongoing saga. If you look at franchises like Zelda or Mario, those games rarely (for the most part) put numbers in their titles, essentially giving the developers a blank canvas to work their magic on. Prime 4 is a continuation of a story that ended on a major cliffhanger with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Federation Force only offered a few tantalizing hints at what’s to come in the future.
It’s important to note that this isn’t a reboot or a major overhaul of the Prime series — it’s simply the next chapter. Halo 4the same as Uncharted 4the same as Gears 4Exactly the same as Pikmin 4! They’re all great games, but I think we can all agree they didn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking compared to what came before. Again, it comes down to expectations and what we want from the next game versus what the actual game will be.
Finally, I want to highlight the visuals in particular. It’s clear that Metroid Prime Remaster was a kind of testbed for Prime 4. When you see the two side by side (I did soIncidentally, the latter shows noticeable improvements, but it’s clear that the technology applied to Metroid Prime was most likely reused for Prime 4. With this in mind, it’s natural to think: “Yeah, Prime 4 is exactly like the first game.”But if you revisit footage from the original trilogy on GameCube and Wii, I think you’ll be amazed at how far Retro Studios has come.
Metroid Prime 4 isn’t going to be the Breath of the Wild of the series, but that’s okay. You shouldn’t expect it to be. You can look forward to a thrilling journey into the fourth mainline entry in Nintendo’s most acclaimed franchise of all time. Let’s hope 2025 comes soon.