Nintendo’s Metroid franchise has proved revolutionary for gaming, with Super Metroid in particular influencing and co-creating an entire genre alongside Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. However, despite the consistent acclaim this franchise received for over two decades since inception, 2007 onwards found it in a rather awkward spot. Metroid: Other M proved controversial; Federation Force was a wholly unsatisfactory follow-up to the Prime trilogy; and the cancellation of the original Metroid Dread on DS left the series in a stand-still.
Despite this, the franchise appeared to be making a comeback with the release of a full remake of Return of Samus in 2017 and a Metroid Prime 4 reveal in that same year. Revered new titles like Metroid Dread arrived from the dead to fill the void between the franchise’s next big FPS release. Eight-and-a-half years of relative radio silence following the initial announcement and nearly seven years since the announcement that the game would be resuming development, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond finally crashlanded in December 2025, almost entirely skipping the Switch console generation and bringing legendary hero Samus Aran back to the FPS stage.
While Prime 4 has released to positive (if lukewarm) reviews, it’s not quite reached the heights of the Prime trilogy that it’s following, at least critically speaking. While I enjoyed the game a lot, it never quite felt consistent in the looming shadow of the trilogy left behind it, delivering what is ultimately a worthwhile but underwhelming rebirth.
Metroid Prime 4’s biggest strength comes in how it feels to play. The Switch 2 version delivers a consistent 60-to-120 FPS depending on the graphics mode with it also offering innovation in mouse controls. These controls are extremely responsive, both in the first-person shooter gameplay and exploring using the newly added bike. Enemy design is the franchise at its best and most varied, though all of these exciting additions create a dissonant problem: the gameplay is left feeling a little antiquated, despite being greatly enjoyable at its peak.
Similarly to how Bethesda’s latest outputs break a graphical and technical boundary without any meaningful change to the game’s flow, Prime 4 feels almost too alike its predecessors from nearly 20 years ago. Dread‘s newly-debuted melee counter-attacks are nowhere to be found, creating a sort of ‘two steps forward, one step back’ feel to the franchise’s progression. The moment-to-moment flow is indubitably the franchise’s apex to date, though it still feels like certain innovations are largely absent — particularly with how said innovations are present everywhere else.
Still, the game looks incredible with spectacular, superb sci-fi art direction in the primary mission areas, and the game certainly captures the essence of the exploration that made the franchise it belongs to so revered, replayed and replicated. The main story is more reminiscent of Prime 3, meaning that the playable areas are considerably more on the linear side than the franchise’s best, but it still proves to be fun to make your way through.
The soundtrack — composed by Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano — is also a definite highlight, second only to Prime 2’s soundtrack that relished in its excellently attributive atmosphere.
However, this game has landed on controversial terrain for several reasons, chief among which is Sol Valley: an excessive, vapid wasteland designed to be traversed using Samus’ new bike, the Vi-O-La. The area simply has very little going on with minimal collectables and a boring visual style seen all too many times before. Deserts in other Nintendo games can feel memorable and substantial, though certainly not here.
You will also spend a lot of time in this wasteland, acting as the central hub you must traverse between major areas. This is an undoubtedly questionable decision from Retro Studios as it removes the inextricably interconnected nature Metroid was founded on, and what inspired an entire genre of homages to blossom. It draws obvious comparisons with Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time which is also criticised for being empty. An agreeable sentiment, but Sol Valley is significantly worse in this regard: let’s not forget there’s been 27 years since Hyrule Field, and subsequent Zelda games amended this issue, including Majora’s Mask, the very next game in the series.
Nintendo’s own Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom both have wide open spaces yet there is plenty to do in both, part of the reason why both games are so brilliant. Prime 4, bluntly, does not capture that magic. Adding to the Zelda comparisons, the mission areas almost feel like the dungeons in the 3D pre-Breath of the Wild games, although failing once again to match those heights. The game practically teases you with the possibility of more with the Vi-O-La being introduced with an almost tongue-in-cheek racetrack tutorial, giving the hope that maybe there could be some exciting races in the field. There is none of that, and it adds to the speculative narrative that maybe this major area stood as unfinished, released anyway as to avoid further delays.
As it stands, Sol Valley is a vacuous and a massive detriment to the overall quality, and one that can’t be substantively ignored. Passing through the place to collect crystals in between every mission always reminds you of what could’ve been.
Another controversial element are the additional characters. Samus is joined by a roster of Galactic Federation soldiers who each have their own tropey personalities. This has been criticised to create an awkward atmosphere during story beats, combining Samus’ total silence with these new faces who often have a lot to say, and aren’t given much of a response. I was initially not enthused, though I warmed up to them in the end, even if the hand-holding nature of their dialogue makes progression feel more lineated. My biggest flaw with these new characters, though, is the main antagonist: Sylux.
Introduced in spin-off Metroid Prime Hunters on the DS, Sylux is an imposing figure who keeps Samus on her toes but has very little meaningful screentime, appearing before you only thrice. His boss fights are all excellent and tense bouts, but he leaves much to be desired as a decades-old threat hinted at as far ago as 2007 in the secret ending of Prime 3. Confusingly, Prime 4 was also revealed to take place between Super and Fusion entries whereas the first couple of Prime titles took place between Metroid 1 and 2, begging the question of what Sylux was even doing there.
Metroid Prime 4 is a confusing entry in a beloved franchise: there’s so much to like, but it often betrays the franchise identity for something more mainstream. It fails to be a truly fantastic modern revival of the Prime series, unlike how excellent Dread was for the 2D side of the series. The result is a repeatedly conflicting experience; one I personally enjoyed greatly but, as a huge Metroid fan, I can only cautiously recommend it.
