It’s been in development since before the dawn of time, and now, as foretold in the Ancient Scrolls, our faith can turn to fact. Metroid Prime 4, first announced in 2017, then re-announced in 2019, is confirmed to be a game that we will one day be able to buy. The game will launch in 2025, and has a subtitle: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.
Nintendo aired a brief glimpse at the Switch game during its Nintendo Direct on June 18, which showed protagonist Samus Aran fighting aliens on a battle-worn planet. It looks like she’ll still be scanning, shooting, and rolling into a ball to get into tight spaces. Check out the trailer below:
The last time we saw a proper new entry in the Metroid Prime franchise was—get ready—2007. That was the release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on the beloved Wii. Since then we’ve had re-releases and remasters, and we all agree we don’t talk about 2016’s Metroid Prime: Federation Force. But now, some 17 years later, we get some proof of life for Samus’s first-person adventuring.
The game was originally being developed by series producer Kensuke Tanabe and a new team seemingly involving Bandai Namco, rather than the series stalwarts, Retro Games. However, in 2019, Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi described their progress as “very challenged,” and that development would start all over again, this time involving Retro.
At the time, Takahashi said that “it will be a long road until the next time we will be able to update you on the development progress,” adding that “development time will be extensive,” although presumably no one was imagining he meant another five years. But that’s how long it’s been since any further information was given.
But the cogs have been turning on the franchise, not least with last year’s release of a Switch remastering of the first game, alongside the hugely popular 2D platformer Metroid: Dread. There’s no doubt that people want to play Metroid as much now as ever, and the Prime branch of Samus’ adventures has lost none of its fervent appeal despite people born when the last game came out now being able to drive.
