When Nintendo closed out its latest Direct with the full reveal 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 the initial announcement in 2017, Prime 4 is scheduled to launch in 2025 and it looks spectacular.
Although the vast majority reacted to the trailer with excitement and anticipation, there were those who felt disappointed, citing the game’s similarities to previous Prime entries, both in terms of visuals and gameplay.
Here’s the thing: I get it. I really do. After 7 (or, if you’re anything like me, 18) years of waiting, our imaginations are definitely starting to get the better of us, and after games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and even Super Mario Bros. Wonder how far Nintendo is willing to deviate from the tried and tested formula, it’s only natural to assume that Prime 4 would 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; experimenting, pushing boundaries and challenging player expectations is always a good thing. But with Prime 4, I think it’s important to examine our expectations and understand what this game actually is.
Let’s look at the development time to start. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Prime 4 was announced too soon, and few would argue against that. Many Nintendo first-party games these days are revealed and released within just a few months, yet almost two years after Prime 4 was announced in June 2017, Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi confirmed that development would be starting from scratch at Retro Studios.
So let’s break this down. If development began in January 2019, that means the Prime 4 has had roughly five years to cook in the oven so far (much of which will likely also be affected by pandemic restrictions in 2020 and 2021 ). 20 years ago, this would have seemed very unusual, but for big budget titles in the 8th and 9th generation of consoles, this is considered the norm. The only difference with Prime 4 is that we, the fans, knew it all along (good luck with The Elder Scrolls VI, Bethesda).
I know a lot of people are probably reading this and thinking something along the lines of “Well, it’s not like that OUR problem, is it?” – and you would be right. What I want to illustrate, however, is that when a game becomes a known entity and then kept under a veil of secrecy (for seven years, mind), it is all too easy for expectations to rise. It has happened to me on many occasions.
It’s also impossible to avoid the growing speculation that the Prime 4 could bypass the Switch altogether and launch into its successor. An understandable conclusion, to be sure, but still unfounded. Nintendo has consistently labeled Prime 4 as a Switch game, including it in its regular lineups during financial updates. Now, I know companies like to embellish information or use misdirection every now and then, but to outright lie about what platform the Prime 4 was going to launch on? No, I never bought it. Prime 4 looks like a Switch game because it IS one. Even if it ends up being cross-gen, the Switch 2 version will just be a flashier version of what we have here.
Additionally, it’s important to consider that Prime 4 is, well, the fourth main entry in an ongoing story. When you look at franchises like Zelda or Mario, those games (for the most part) rarely put numbers in their titles, essentially giving developers a blank canvas on which to work their magic. Prime 4 is the continuation of a story that ended on a cliffhanger in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, with the Force Federation offering only a few tantalizing clues as to what might happen in the future.
The thing is, this isn’t a reboot or a drastic overhaul of the Prime series; it’s just the next chapter, just like Halo 4, just like Uncharted 4, just like Gears 4. Heck, just like Pikmin 4! And I think we’d all agree, as good as they are, that none of these games did anything particularly groundbreaking compared to the previous entries. Again, it comes down to expectations and what we think we want from the upcoming game versus what it actually will be.
Finally, I want to highlight the visuals, especially. It’s clear to me that Metroid Prime Remastered was a bit of a test bed for Prime 4. Watching the two side-by-side (which I did, by the way), there’s a marked improvement with the latter, but you can tell that the technology applied to Metroid Prime was likely reused for Prime 4. With that in mind, you’d be forgiven for thinking, “Oh so Prime 4 looks like the first game”. But I would say go back and watch footage of 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 just fine – we shouldn’t expect it to be. What we can look forward to is a thrilling ride in the fourth mainline entry in one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises of all time. 2025 can’t come soon enough.