Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has quickly become my top pick for the Switch 2.

This latest installment not only meets the high standards set by its forerunners but also takes bold risks with significant changes, even at the risk of challenging the devotion of its dedicated fanbase.

One of the standout features is Samus’ new motorbike, along with an increase in talkative companions.

However, these updates may not necessarily attract a swarm of new players to the series.

Backtracking remains a core element in Prime 4. Choosing the wrong path with a new ability can lead to more irritation than enjoyment. Despite teleportation being a crucial part of the storyline, fast travel isn’t available on the planet Viewros, meaning you’ll find yourself repeatedly crossing expansive deserts if you make a misstep.

Personally, I love that. But in 2025, that could put off a lot of players. 

That would be a shame because Retro has crafted another masterpiece. 

(Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s environments are gorgeous.)

A Prime game has never looked, sounded or controlled this perfectly. 

My main complaint is that the ‘psychic abilities’ Samus gets are an absolute fizzer.  

If only Prime 4 was Nintendo’s Switch 2 launch game. 

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is Nintendo’s greatest showcase of the Switch 2’s power. 

I played in quality mode, which pushed a 4K image to my TV at a rock solid 60 frames per second.

I dabbled with mouse mode at preview events and walked away impressed, but played through the real deal with a Pro Controller and motion controls turned on. 

With the exception of some low quality enemies, Prime 4’s presentation is near perfect.

Gorgeous lighting and particle effects litter the skyline during an incredible (albeit linear) opening battle. 

Samus’ armour glimmers with the highlights and shadows of her surroundings and – on the rare occasion an actual human face is on screen – Retro has done a solid job animating the most realistic faces to ever appear in a Nintendo-published game. 

For a game about isolation and exploration, Federation Force soldiers play a much bigger role in Prime 4’s story than you might expect. Thankfully, I never felt like they had overstayed their welcome. 

Miles was just the beginning. 

Miles McKenize – a bumbling but talented engineer – worried fans during the game’s previews during an overly chatty escort mission. 

Yes, he’s still a nervous blabbermouth in the final game but he doesn’t stick around for long. 

Miles sets up a base camp that Samus will repeatedly have to revisit throughout the game. Every now and then, his voice may pop up over an intercom to make a suggestion on where to go or what to do. His advice is rare but it’s often an explicit direction. This is a nice addition for new gamers but it will annoy fans who play Metroid games because they like being isolated and working things out for themselves.

For the most part, Samus explores planet Viewros alone. 

However, you will meet stranded soldiers in every biome. 

Overall, I liked what they brought to the story. Retro has taken a risk and for the most part, they deftly walk the tightrope between what Metroid Prime has been in the past, and what it needs to be in 2025. 

Prime 4 still heavily relies on its environments (and scanning everything in sight) to provide hints about the world and cultures Samus explores. Without spoiling anything, this remains my favourite part of Metroid Prime 4’s design. 

You don’t just get a motorcycle, you have to infiltrate the abandoned manufacturing plant that once built them for an extinct race, bring its generators back online, then work your way back up and down multiple towers – which are now fully active, laser laced production lines – to activate Vi-O-La (Samus’ motorcycle). 

Vi-O-La plays a surprisingly large part in Metroid Prime 4.  

The game’s biomes are connected by a large (and fairly empty) desert dubbed the “Sand Sea,” which essentially functions like Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time.  

Riding around is fun enough, especially once you get a handle on using the left trigger to perform tighter turns, but there’s not a massive amount you need to do in the desert right away. There are green crystals to smash and collect, blobs to run through to regenerate your boost metres and a few secrets that glimmer on the horizon but those secrets are few and far between. 

These all become much more important later in the game. Once they did, I started to really enjoy my time on the bike. I just wish it was more appealing from the get go. 

Occasionally, an enemy or two appears which you need to take down and, once you get a hang of it, the combat feels pretty great considering fights are limited to a button to shoot and another to boost.  

No spoilers, but it plays a big role in one of the game’s boss fights and it’s one hell of a spectacle. 

Metroid bosses have a lot in common with those in the Legend of Zelda, and Prime 4 doesn’t disappoint. 

These giant, hulking beasts are often just as much of a puzzle as the rooms which brought you to them, and demand you use an item or upgrade you’ve recently acquired to full effect.

If you aren’t paying attention, they can be pretty punishing too. 

Each of the bosses has a large array of moves and some have several phases. A lot of love has gone into these encounters, I just wish I could say the same for your run-of-the-mill enemies.

I love that Retro emphasises the story behind the game’s standard alien enemy but, while there is some variation in the different biomes, everything else you shoot is basically a bug, a slug, a plant or a robot.

There are some fun mini-bosses scattered throughout the world but they’re rare and often ugly.

There’s never that many enemies on screen at once, so I don’t know why Prime 4’s enemies don’t look as nice as its stunning environments. 

Samus looks gorgeous though, as do the faces of your companions when they’re not hiding behind their helmets (which is most of the time). 

Remember when that trailer said Samus’ psychic abilities would give her the power to “open doors,” “operate mechanisms” and “control the trajectory of her beams with the power of her mind” and you thought, “there must be more to that?”

With the exception of a few boss encounters that demand you use the psychic beam to expose a weak point (which I enjoyed), Samus’ new psychic beam is too slow and annoying to use in regular fights. It was never a better option than using a missile or just a good ol’ fashion charged shot. When I did use it, 99 per cent of the time it was an accident because I’d just scanned an enemy and wanted to fire a charge shot at it instead, because you fire a psychic beam by charging a shot with your visor equipped (which was quite annoying). 

That leaves you with opening doors and moving mechanisms.

I don’t know why we needed a slower option for this when blasting a door open with Samus’ arm cannon or moving this with the grappling hook have worked just fine in the past. 

Unfortunately, they’re the only real “new” abilities Samus gets in Prime 4 (besides her motorbike) that we haven’t already seen in previous games.

For Samus’ next adventure, Retro should bury her psychic powers.   

I rolled on Metroid Prime 4: Beyond in precisely 14 hours.   

I had only scanned 90 per cent of the world and collected 89% of all items when I decided to take on the final boss, knowing that completing the game would unlock a hard mode that I’m keen to play through and “100 per cent.”

The ending I saw doesn’t put a full stop on Samus’ story. 

In many ways, Prime 4 feels like a soft reboot. 

Yes, it’s set after the Prime Trilogy but, with the exception of the game’s villain, Sylux, there’s nothing tying this story to what came before. 

That’s great for newcomers, and the game is clearly trying to build a more interesting backstory for Sylux in the process. Do we get enough answers to satisfy fans in Prime 4? Probably not. 

Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another 18 years for a few more hints in Metroid Prime 5.