There are some fans who are still recovering from the Nintendo Direct that happened earlier this week, and for good reason. Nintendo dropped some serious bombshells during that event, highlighting that the Nintendo Switch still has plenty to offer players before it goes out into the sunset. The game that people were arguably most stunned about was the return trailer for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. This title was first announced back in 2017 during E3 when its logo was first shown. Since then, it’s been something that people talked about online, but never got any meaningful information about it from Nintendo.
However, the new trailer showed off many elements of what the game would be like, and we finally have a release window via 2025. A smaller tidbit of news that is just as important is that Retro Studios, the team behind the original trilogy and now this return title, gave a brief message on Twitter about the game. Needless to say, they’re a happy group, and they can’t wait for the game to release:
As noted, they were the team behind the original “Prime Saga” that starred Samus Aran. It was a revolutionary trilogy in certain ways as it moved Samus into the 3D space and into the first-person perspective. All three games, two of which were on the Nintendo GameCube and one on the Wii, were all hits. Then, Retro Studios went on to work with Donkey Kong and his family, developing two hit games in that series, one for the Wii and one for the Wii U that got ported to the Nintendo Switch. It’s after that game that things get a bit murky for the studio.
Many people thought they were working on a third title starring Donkey Kong, but that never happened. We honestly don’t know what Retro Studios was doing for several years until it was announced that they were the ones taking over on Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. It was another team that tried to make the game to start, but Nintendo wasn’t happy about the quality they were seeing, and thus, they rebooted production and gave the reigns back to Retro Studios.
Based on what we saw in the gameplay trailer at the Nintendo Direct, that appears to have been the right choice, as the game looks good. We’ll have to wait for a new trailer to get more insight into what’s going on, but after waiting all this time…it’s not that bad waiting a little longer.
