Let’s be honest—waiting twenty years for a sequel isn’t just patience. It’s faith.
Faith that the magic you remember—the hush of an alien corridor, the quiet dread of not knowing what’s around the next bend, the feeling that you, and only you, are navigating a world that doesn’t care if you live or die—will still be there when the game finally arrives.
So when I got my hands on Metroid Prime 4: Beyond during a recent preview session, I’ll admit: my heart was pounding like I was stepping into a Chozo temple for the first time. And in many ways, I was.
But here’s the thing that’s been gnawing at me ever since: Metroid Prime 4 feels like a game caught between two impulses. On one hand, it’s a stunning, technically masterful evolution of the series—gorgeous, responsive, and packed with inventive new mechanics. On the other? It’s risking the very soul of what made Metroid Metroid.
And that soul… is silence.
The Return of Samus—More Powerful, More Alone Than Ever (Or Is She?)
The demo began exactly how you’d hope: Samus, suited up and stoic, drops onto a Galactic Federation outpost just as Space Pirates launch a full-scale assault. Explosions rock the hangar. Alarms wail. Soldiers scramble for cover. It’s chaos—but the kind of chaos Samus thrives in.
She moves with precision. Every shot lands. Every dodge feels weighty. You’re not just playing a hero—you are the storm.
Then—poof—white light.
An ancient artifact detonates like a temporal bomb, and suddenly, Samus isn’t on the base anymore. She’s somewhere else. Somewhere ancient. Somewhere wrong.
This is where Prime 4 truly begins. You’re in a crumbling temple, overgrown with bioluminescent flora, surrounded by creatures that screech from the shadows. The air hums with mystery. You scan a moss-covered statue, and your visor flickers with fragmented lore about a near-extinct alien race who call Samus “the Chosen One.”
And then—she unlocks new abilities. Not upgrades from a Chozo shrine, but something deeper—psychic. Telekinetic.
Purple energy ripples across her suit. Her visor glows violet. With a flick of her wrist (or mouse), she can levitate debris, crush enemies mid-air, or rotate ancient mechanisms to solve puzzles. It’s flashy. It’s cool. And surprisingly, it feels like Samus—just evolved.
I still remember the first time I used the Scan Visor in Metroid Prime. It wasn’t just a tool—it was how the world spoke to me. Quietly. Indirectly. Like secrets whispered in the dark.
Now, Samus doesn’t just listen—she commands. And that shift? It’s exhilarating… but also unsettling.
A Technical Marvel—Especially on Switch 2
Let’s talk hardware for a sec, because wow—Metroid Prime 4 runs like a dream on the rumored “Switch 2” (Nintendo still won’t confirm the name, but let’s be real).
In Performance Mode, it’s 1080p at a buttery-smooth 120fps when docked. Handheld dips to 720p but keeps that 120fps—that’s huge. I played most of the demo in Quality Mode (4K/60fps docked, 1080p/60 handheld), and the difference is night and day compared to the rougher build shown at the Switch 2 reveal event earlier this year. Textures are rich, lighting is cinematic, and the environmental detail—like vines swaying in an alien breeze or the way Samus’s reflections ripple across wet stone—feels next-gen.
But the real surprise? Mouse support.
Yes, you read that right. You can plug in a USB mouse (confirmed in this build) and play Metroid Prime 4 with PC-style precision. At 120fps. On a Nintendo console.
It feels… wrong in the best way. Like sneaking into a library after hours and finding it fully stocked with sci-fi paperbacks. The Joy-Con mouse mode works too, but let’s be honest—the claw grip gets painful after 20 minutes of intense combat. If you’ve got a proper mouse? Use it. The telekinesis mechanics, in particular, are made for pixel-perfect control.
Honestly, it’s a little surreal. Nintendo—the company that once fought motion controls with religious fervor—is now embracing mouse-and-keyboard-like precision in its flagship FPS-adjacent franchise. Progress, I guess.
But Then… There’s Miles.
Ah, Miles McKenzie.
Engineer Level 4. Bespectacled. Nervous. And, unfortunately, everywhere.
About halfway through the demo, you rescue this Federation tech nerd from a collapsed corridor. He dangles from a pipe, yelps when a creature lunges, and—worst of all—sticks with you. Not as a combat partner, but as a walking, talking narrative crutch.
“Oh! You can interface with their tech? That means you’ve got translation data!” he blurts, mid-puzzle.
“Uh, Samus? There’s a save point back there… just saying!” he calls out if you skip it.
And when you morph into your ball form right in front of him? “Why would you do that?”
At first, I rolled my eyes. Then I sighed. Then I felt a pang of genuine loss.
Because here’s what Metroid has always been about: isolation.
Not loneliness—isolation. The kind that makes every discovery feel earned. Every scan log feels like uncovering a tomb. Every echo in a cavern feels like a ghost. Samus never needed someone to explain the stakes. The world did that for her—through atmosphere, through design, through silence.
Miles doesn’t just break that silence—he shatters it.
His constant chatter turns ancient mystery into exposition. His presence turns exploration into a guided tour. And his UI icon (a little wrench in the top-left corner) feels less like a gameplay feature and more like a leash.
At first, it didn’t make sense. Why would Retro Studios—of all developers—add a chatty sidekick to a franchise built on solitude?
Then it hit me: they’re trying to make Metroid more “accessible.” More “narrative-driven.” More… Halo.
And that’s the rub.
Halo’s Marines vs. Samus’s Silence: Two Kinds of Sci-Fi Loneliness
Let’s not pretend Halo wasn’t brilliant. Master Chief’s radio chatter with Cortana and the squad banter with Marines gave the games rhythm, humor, even heart. But Metroid was never trying to be Halo.
Samus’s power comes from her silence. Her mystery. Her refusal to explain herself.
In Prime 1, you learned about the Phazon crisis not from cutscenes, but from scanning corrupted logs in abandoned labs. In Fusion, your only “companion” was a cold, clinical AI that barely acknowledged your existence. Even in Dread, where ADAM speaks, he’s clinical, distant—never friendly.
But Miles? He’s chummy. He’s reactive. He’s annoying.
And that’s not just a nitpick—it’s a philosophical shift.
If the rest of Metroid Prime 4 follows this pattern—Samus constantly flanked by engineers, soldiers, or “chosen one” alien mentors—then we’re not just getting a new Metroid. We’re getting Metroid reimagined as a co-op-adjacent, dialogue-heavy adventure.
And that… that might be the real temporal explosion here. Not the artifact—but the series’ identity.
World Design: Less “Interconnected Labyrinth,” More “Hub-and-Spoke”?
Another departure: the structure.
Gone is the iconic spaceship you’d return to between areas. Instead, Samus rides a sleek, futuristic motorcycle (yes, really) across a sprawling desert that connects biomes—a temple here, a volcanic rift there, maybe a frozen citadel beyond.
It feels… Zelda-like. Specifically, Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. Not a bad thing, necessarily—but again, it signals a move away from the tightly interwoven, backtracking-rich worlds of classic Prime.
That said, the temple segment was classic Metroid: locked doors requiring new abilities, hidden paths revealed by scanning murals, environmental puzzles that demanded observation over brute force. The new telekinesis powers added fresh layers—like using purple energy to rotate a stone disc mid-air, aligning ancient symbols to open a gate.
So the spirit is there. But the container? It’s changing.
Final Thoughts: Excitement… Tempered with Grief
Look—I want to love Metroid Prime 4 Beyond.
The combat is snappy. The visuals are jaw-dropping. The new psychic abilities feel fresh but grounded. And playing at 120fps with mouse precision? It’s a revelation.
But every time Miles piped up—every time he explained what I already knew, or reminded me of a mechanic I’d mastered hours ago—I felt a little piece of the old Metroid slip away.
Because Metroid wasn’t just a game. It was a mood. A tone. A quiet kind of heroism where the greatest victories happened in silence, alone, in the dark.
Maybe Retro Studios knows what they’re doing. Maybe Miles is temporary. Maybe the game gets quieter as it goes deeper.
But based on this preview? I’m worried.
You’re alone on a planet with no hope of survival…
…but you’re not alone anymore.
And that might be the biggest twist of all.
Stay tuned. As launch approaches, I’ll be diving deeper into Metroid Prime 4 Beyond—not just as a player, but as someone who’s carried a love for Samus’s solitude for over two decades. Because if this game does betray that legacy, I’ll be the first to say it.
But if it finds a way to balance innovation with reverence?
Then maybe—just maybe—we’ll get the Metroid we’ve been waiting for. Not just the one we deserve, but the one we need.
After all, some silences are worth preserving.
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