When Nintendo closed out its latest Direct with a full demo of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the world briefly got a little louder as fans celebrated the glorious return of one of the company’s most revered franchises. FinallyAfter its initial announcement in 2017, the Prime 4 is slated for a 2025 launch and looks great.
While the vast majority reacted to the trailer with excitement and anticipation, there were those who were disappointed, citing the game’s similarity to previous Prime entries in both visuals and gameplay.
Here it is: I get it. I really do. After 7 (or 18 if you’re like me) years of waiting, surely our imaginations are starting to get the better of us and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and even Super Mario Bros. With games like Wonder showing just how far Nintendo is willing to deviate from the tried-and-true formula, it’s natural to assume that Prime 4 will also mark a significant 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; experimentation, 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 actually is.
To start, let’s look at the development time. Of course, Prime 4 was announced too soon, and few will argue against it. These days, many Nintendo first-party games appear and are released within a few months, but nearly two years after the Prime 4 was announced in June 2017, Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi confirmed that development will resume From scratch at Retro Studios.
So let’s break it down. If development started in January 2019, that means Prime 4 has had about five years to cook in the oven by now (much of which was also affected by pandemic restrictions in 2020 and 2021). 20 years ago this seemed most unusual, but for big budget titles on 8th and 9th generation consoles, this is considered the norm. The only difference with Prime 4 is that we, the fans, knew about it from the beginning (good luck The Elder Scrolls VIBethesda).
I know a lot of people are reading this and thinking, “Well, it’s not our problem, right?” – and you would be right. However, what I want to illustrate is that when a game becomes a known entity and is subsequently kept under a veil of secrecy (for seven years, mind), it is incredibly easy to inflate expectations. This has happened to me many times.
There’s also no escaping the growing speculation that the Prime 4 might actually skip the Switch altogether and release its successor. An understandable conclusion to be sure, but an unreasonable one nonetheless. Nintendo has consistently labeled Prime 4 as a Switch game, including it in its regular lineup during financial updates. Now, I know companies like to use misdirection or embellishment from time to time, but are they outright lying about what platform Prime 4 will launch on? No, I never got that. Prime 4 is similar to the Switch game because it does one. Even if it’s cross-gen, the Switch 2 version will just be a flashier version of what we got here.
Additionally, it’s important to note that Prime 4 is the fourth main entry in an ongoing story. When you look at franchises like Zelda or Mario, these games (for the most part) rarely put numbers on their titles, essentially giving the developers a blank canvas to work their magic on. Prime 4 is the continuation of the story that culminated in a giant cliffhanger in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and the Force of the Federation gives only a few tantalizing hints as to what might happen in the future.
The thing is, this isn’t a reboot or overhaul of the Prime series; it’s just the next chapter Halo 4likewise Uncharted 4likewise Gears 4. Heck, just like Pikmin 4! I think we’ll all agree that, as good as they are, none of these games did anything particularly groundbreaking compared to previous entries. Again, it comes down to expectations and what we think we want from the next game and what it actually will be.
Finally, I want to specifically highlight the visuals. It’s clear to me that Metroid Prime Remastered was a bit of a test bed for Prime 4. If we look at the two side by side (which i didBy the way), there is a noticeable improvement with the last one, but you can tell that the technology applied to Metroid Prime was probably modified for Prime 4. “Oh, Prime 4 is just like the first game”. But I would say go back and watch footage from the original trilogy on GameCube and Wii and I think you’ll be surprised at how far Retro Studios has come.
Metroid Prime 4 won’t be the franchise’s “Breath of the Wild moment,” and that’s okay—we shouldn’t expect it to be. We look forward to an exciting journey into the fourth major entry in one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises of all time. 2025 can’t come soon enough.