Seven long years after its original reveal at E3 2017,Nintendohas finally given us an update onMetroid Prime 4. The long-awaited sequel is coming next year from Retro Studios, and is already shaping up to be something special. Our own Eric Switzer has already written about how big a deal it is that Sylux is coming back as our main antagonist, while the reveal trailer is filled with hints about the past, present, and future of Samus’ new adventure.
Aside from a remaster of the original Metroid Prime and the stellar Dread, Samus has been absent from the gaming world for a long time. With the fourth entry entering production before it was swiftly restarted due to quality issues, our bounty hunter was left in development limbo. Now, after years of waiting, she is finally on the horizon, and seems poised to be the perfect swansong for the Nintendo Switch. Better yet, I think she’s bound to bridge generations.
Nintendo Is No Stranger To The Double Generation Release
The company has made a habit of doing this over the years. It began withTwilight Princesson the Nintendo GameCube and Wii, with the Zelda title being available for both consoles, while the GameCube version did lag behind by a few weeks, so the spotlight stayed on the new hardware. Twilight Princess was mostly developed for the GameCube, but Nintendo would have been a fool not to quickly jerry-rig it for its new platform as a launch title. It was the right decision, even if years later, the GC remains the superior way to play. That’s what the HD version based itself on, after all.
Breath of the Wildfollowed in its footsteps a decade later, a game which was once again in development primarily for the previous generation, but was swiftly ported to a new console because it made more sense.
The difference is that this time, the Switch release is far superior, with a better framerate and crisper visuals than the Wii U was capable of, since it was lagging behind something fierce by the time its successor rolled around. The Wii was just a couple of cubes stacked together, so I’m not sure if there was much in it for Twilight Princess.
Now we are staring down the barrel of Metroid Prime 4, and its 2025 release date feels like a great way to ring in a new generation and finish up an old one with style. I struggle to see it playing out any other way, since Nintendo isn’t the type of company to announce a title for a console only to pull it at the last minute. It will straddle the line, even if that means having an inferior way to play on the market, because what matters is that nobody is missing out.
Metroid Prime 4 Needs To Run At 60 Frames Per Second
Metroid Prime is a series that has always run at 60 frames per second while looking fantastic, pulling us into stylised worlds filled with grand environments and excellent characters, most of which wouldn’t have shone nearly as bright if it wasn’t for Retro Studios’ technical wizardry. That will be replicated in Metroid Prime 4, but perhaps not on the original Switch. It’s been struggling as a console ever since it came out, with big titles like Breath of the Wild, Link’s Awakening, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 all clearly held back due to a lack of power. Metroid Prime 4 can’t afford to make that same mistake, or at minimum, it needs to offer a way to play that replicates the smooth brilliance of every game before it.
This also raises questions about how theNintendo Switch 2 will handle backward compatibility. There’s a chance it will naturally improve performance on all of our existing games by virtue of having more powerful hardware to work with.
I can see it being presented alongsidePokemon Legends Z-Aas two massive launch titles which not only showcase the power of this new console, but emphasise exactly what kind of games we can expect from Nintendo going forward. This pair will offer a solid variety of exclusive bangers that, at least for the time being, won’t be struggling to look good or run well on native hardware.
It just seems like a no-brainer to me, especially with the 2025 release date and knowing when Nintendo plans to reveal and launch the second Switch. Metroid Prime 4 could blow us away under the right circumstances, and given how vast and ambitious the reveal trailer is, I hope it doesn’t hold back.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
Metroid Prime 4 continues the series of first-person games that blend the action-adventure and shooter genres, currently in development for the Nintendo Switch.
