Highlights
- Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, announced in Spring 2024, promises modern graphics and gameplay for Nintendo Switch in 2025.
- Metroid Prime's history showcases impressive graphical evolution, from GameCube to Wii, with each installment.
- Metroid Prime 4: Beyond may set a new visual standard for the series on the Nintendo Switch, based on early trailer reveals.
In the Spring 2024 Nintendo Direct event, the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4 finally received an announcement trailer and a subtitle: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. First announced back in E3 2017, Beyond will finally arrive exclusively on Nintendo Switch consoles sometime in 2025. No specific release date has been revealed yet. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s announcement trailer wasn’t just to show that Metroid Prime 4 was still being worked on, however. It additionally showcased a bit of Beyond’s gameplay and modernized graphics.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - Who is the Mysterious Antagonist?
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond re-emerged and showed off brand-new gameplay, including a tease of the game's mysterious antagonist.
Metroid Prime’s Graphical History
Metroid Prime has long been a beloved 3D, first-person take on Nintendo’s signature science fiction franchise. First introduced in 2002 with Metroid Prime 1 on the GameCube, the Metroid Prime series features several differences between its side-scroller counterparts beyond the first-person perspective. Metroid Prime 1 featured a heavier focus on Samus Aran’s story with the first entry focusing on her battle between Phazon-mutated creatures and the Metroid Prime creature. It’s also the most realistic depiction of the Metroid universe, becoming one of the most graphically intensive games for the GameCube with dynamic lighting, gasses, water, and, of course, Samus’ iconic HUD.
Metroid Prime 1 quickly became one of the GameCube’s best-selling titles and, by 2004, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was released for the GameCube once more. Graphically, Echoes looked similar to Metroid Prime 1 with a few improvements to the game’s fidelity and animations. The Metroid Prime series received its most graphically impressive title yet with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in 2007 for the Wii. Here, players were witness to more complex character designs, such as the alien bounty hunters Gandrayda, Ghor, and Rundas with each having dynamic animations within their own bodies. Beyond characters, Corruption displayed some of the most dynamic space battles in the franchise, with several detailed frigates and fighters flying among planetary waves and wormholes.
Metroid Prime Mobile Games and Remastered’s Graphics
The Metroid Prime series would take a 16-year-long break from releasing new mainline entries on home consoles after the release of Corruption. Before that break appeared, however, the Prime series was brought to the handheld medium for the first time with 2006’s Metroid Prime: Hunters on the DS. Hunters was a different take on Metroid Prime’s graphical achievements, with a more pixelated and simple design akin to Half-Life 1 than Metroid Prime 1. Graphically poor handheld entries continued with 2016’s Metroid Prime: Federation Force on the 3DS. Following the Prime series’ 20th anniversary, Metroid Prime 1 received an updated, high-definition visual overhaul in 2023 for the Nintendo Switch in the form of Metroid Prime Remastered.
A remaster of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the Nintendo Switch is rumored to be in development since at least 2023.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s Graphical Potential
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is the first game in the series to be built from the ground up for the Nintendo Switch. With the console having produced other graphically captivating and impressive games, such as Super Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Beyond has the potential to be the greatest Metroid game of all time in regards to its visuals. While the announcement trailer for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was short, it’s already shown the graphical power the Switch could bring to the Metroid Prime series.
The setting of the Galactic Federation Research Facility looks incredibly realistic with rock-filled canyons, a cloudy sky with a few rays peeking through, and engrossing smoke and flames from explosions. Samus herself has never looked better with her classic Power Suit in its most detailed and complex depiction yet. Even the classic space pirate enemies no longer look like cliche cartoon villains and appear as intimidating as any alien seen in other sci-fi games such as the Covenant in Halo. Perhaps the most visually stunning entities in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond so far are the titular Metroids themselves with their transparent bubble-like heads showing their brains and spinal column in spectacularly gross fashion.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
- Franchise
- Metroid
- Platform(s)
- Switch
- Developer(s)
- Retro Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
- Genre(s)
- Action
