New Metroid video games are few and much between, so the launch of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond ought to have been a monumental occasion for the fanbase. As a substitute, eight years after its announcement, and 18 years after the earlier sport, Nintendo’s huge December 2025 launch landed with a loud thud. Already, this as soon as extremely anticipated title is poised to be one of many collection’ most divisive video games, incomes a spot alongside Different M and Federation Drive.
This is not for lack of polish, as Prime 4 is certainly visually gorgeous and maybe the best first-party showcase of graphics on the Nintendo Change and its successor. However whereas it has its share of fans, it’s tough to not really feel underwhelmed by the ultimate product compared to prior Prime video games and even different, related entries within the Metroidvania house that has grown in Nintendo’s frequent absence.
The record of Metroidvania video games from impartial and third-party builders previously decade alone is astonishing, with Ori and the Blind Forest, Axiom Verge, Hole Knight, Lifeless Cells, Animal Effectively, and others throwing new ideas and improvements into the style’s nicely of concepts. Hole Knight and its follow-up, Silksong, have captivated gamers with their dense worldbuilding, roaming NPCs, and elective aspect goals, all of which have come to outline the critically acclaimed collection. 9 Sols stood out with its intricate fight system, whereas extra out-there video games like pinball Metroidvania Yoku’s Island Categorical have confirmed something could be a Metroidvania with the correct quantity of willpower and creativity. Even Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown modified the sport with one thing so simple as an in-game screenshot system to assist with backtracking. The Metroidvania style is quickly iterating with a quantity of distinctive takes.
Sadly, Metroid Prime 4 lacks the identical ambition as its contemporaries and serves as proof that the collection is now lagging behind the very video games that it impressed. All Nintendo has needed to present within the midst of this enormous explosion of search-action video games is Metroid Dread, which, nearly as good a sport as it’s, is much from probably the most progressive or distinctive sport of the bunch.
It’s disappointing to see Nintendo turn out to be an also-ran in an area it helped create. Not each sport the corporate publishes must be an earth-shattering launch that utterly shakes up the tenets of sport improvement. However this can be a firm that has reinvented its different legacy properties a number of occasions. For Zelda, Ocarina of Time was a revolutionary transition to 3D, whereas Breath of the Wild as soon as once more reimagined the collection with a brand new open-world format. The first Metroid Prime in 2002 was the same accomplishment, unmatched by something within the collection since then.
Prime 4 may have taken the same strategy: utilizing acquainted gameplay ideas and constructions whereas constructing one thing new, sudden, or refreshing. Nintendo and Retro Studios may have challenged our notion of what a Metroid sport may very well be. As a substitute, Prime 4 feels archaic–the identical as common, besides additional distilled and with the added prefix of “Psychic” at the start.
Beneath the hood, Prime 4 reuses sport design concepts from the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s, which wouldn’t be egregious if it had iterated on or refined any of them. The closest characteristic to an innovation that the sport consists of is the nonsensical paywalling of background music. The finish result’s a wierd mixture of ideas from the primary three Prime video games, as if Prime 4 was primarily based on a obscure reminiscence of the unique trilogy.
It retains the visible id established within the authentic Metroid Prime, nevertheless it turns the complicated rooms and environments into lengthy, slender corridors with the occasional cut up path. Prime 4’s world construction is considerably like Prime 2’s, centering on an overworld that connects the completely different biomes. Nonetheless, in contrast to in Prime 2, Prime 4’s map lacks any connection between the biomes themselves, and the Ocarina of Time-like overworld of Sol Valley is extra of a chore to journey via than its personal compelling space to discover. And controversially, Prime 4 has the voice performing and cutscene-filled cinematics of Prime 3, besides that Prime 4 forgot to incorporate both a narrative that is sensible or cheap character motivations. All in all, Prime 4 is sort of a botched cowl model of the previous three video games.
Prime 4’s loop is basically this: Enter a dungeon, undergo prolonged hallways, experience some elevators, activate the ability or full another goal, after which backtrack via the complete space whereas going through a brand new problem. It’s extraordinarily simple, and I used to be capable of settle for that loop as a tutorial section–but Prime 4 by no means felt prefer it bought previous the tutorial.
The borderline on-rails nature of Prime 4 is problematic for a series–and genre–based round exploration. Linearity and hand-holding aren’t new to the series–Fusion and Zero Mission had been early examples of the sport explicitly giving gamers a vacation spot waypoint on the map. Prime 3 can also be thought-about by followers to be a extra linear affair, and Metroid Dread, with all of its Metroidvania-ness, imploys intelligent methods to supply an invisible guiding hand to assist gamers advance via its world. However whereas Dread was a modernization and streamlining of 2D Metroid, Prime 4 looks like a regression, with its model of streamlining actively dissolving much-needed pressure and discouraging participant company.
That is additional exemplified by the sport’s characters, who proceed to radio you even after they cease following you round. To listen to a personality “suggesting” the place to go in an virtually passive-aggressive tone feels patronizing to me as a participant, and I discovered myself ignoring these recommendations, defiantly turning my Vi-O-La bike in the other way via the largely empty desert. I felt the necessity to push again on Prime 4’s guiding hand to really feel any kind of empowerment, however even then, there’s little to do outdoors of the sport’s vital path.
Prime 4 stripping away that Metroidvania construction and really feel is especially disappointing provided that the 3D Metroidvania house is essentially untapped. There are hints of Metroid Prime in video games like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. However with how groundbreaking Prime 1 was, it’s unhappy that it didn’t encourage imitators to the identical diploma as Breath of the Wild did after its launch. Prime 4 may have been a watershed second for 3D exploration-based games–instead, it wastes the chance, relapsing to antiquated concepts and questionable design choices to kind an general underwhelming expertise.
Nintendo must be main the cost within the Metroidvania house, because it does with platformers, action-adventure video games, and different genres. Sadly, Prime 4 feels extra like an obligation for stakeholders and investors–something Nintendo couldn’t again away from after prematurely asserting it, relatively than a ardour venture that showcases the corporate’s ingenuity. Naturally, this results in questions on simply how troubled Prime 4’s improvement was.
In the end, the Metroidvania style doesn’t want Nintendo in an effort to thrive–other sport creators have lengthy confirmed this case. Whereas builders might not discover inspiration in trendy Metroid, they will nonetheless look to the likes of Hole Knight as a North Star. The democratization of the Metroidvania is objectively a great factor, as nobody firm ought to have a monopoly on a style. However regardless of my misgivings with Prime 4 and my contentment with competing Metroidvanias, I nonetheless need Nintendo to make extra Metroid video games. It’s my favourite Nintendo collection, and it deserves the identical therapy as the corporate’s different key manufacturers.
A comforting thought is that the response to Prime 4 would possibly ship Nintendo again to the drafting board for the Metroid collection. Though it may need fumbled its Breath of the Wild second, hopefully there will likely be one thing of a Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword impact, through which Prime 4’s shortcomings result in Nintendo reevaluating the franchise and placing out a extra formidable title the following time round.
But when and once we get a Prime 5, my expectations will likely be even bigger. Nintendo desires to be all about innovation, and I would like the following Metroid to be a landmark achievement that different builders will observe. The Metroid franchise deserves nothing much less. I simply hope it gained’t take one other 18 years for Metroid Prime to get that probability.