Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s stunning first trailer was worth the wait

digitaltrends.com:

This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

During the June 2024 Nintendo Direct, Retro Studios showed off new gameplay footage of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. The game is coming in 2025 for Nintendo Switch.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was first announced in 2017, reportedly under the development of Bandai Namco. However, in 2019, development shifted to Retro Studios and was subsequently rebooted. There weren’t many substantial updates until now.

The trailer shows gameplay in first-person as Samus guns down a horde of space pirates. Tools like her scan visor return, as does her morph ball. We see her rolling through a vent with it as a facility explodes in the background.

It was also revealed that the bounty hunter Sylux is returning as an antagonist. He appeared in the special endings for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid Prime: Federation Force, which set him up for the events of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.

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The end of the trailer shows Samus coming out of a cave and into a lush green environment with waterfalls and birds flying. It’s then that the screen fades to black to show the 2025 release window.

What’s unclear, however, is whether Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will release on the current Nintendo Switch or its successor, or both. With rumors that the successor will also launch sometime in 2025, it’s certainly possible that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond could be a launch title for it. It could be a similar situation to how The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released on both the Switch and the Wii U in 2017.

While Metroid Prime 4: Beyond won’t launch until 2025, fans can get their Metroid fix with Metroid Prime Remastered and Metroid Dread in the meantime.