Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is genuinely entertaining, delivering flashes of the series’ classic spirit, but it still falls short of how much more satisfying it could have been.
In general, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond feels like a mix of different inspirations. On one hand, it acts as a follow-up to 2007’s Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, drawing on many of the earlier game’s most recognizable strengths and weaknesses with a respectful, fan-friendly attitude. On the other hand, it brings in fresh ideas for the franchise—less in the way other Metroid games typically do, and more in the style of another Nintendo series (details shortly). The overall layout has a near “assemble-it” feeling, combining modes and approaches with clear, deliberate shifts. Even so, it mostly comes together well.
Right from the start of Metroid Prime 4, bounty hunter Samus Aran is called back to support the Galactic Federation. The organization has an extremely powerful ancient relic, and one of its outposts is being attacked by Space Pirates who are after the same prize. During the ensuing chaos, the Relic is unintentionally “activated”—in effect, it detonates, releasing a burst of energy that pulls Samus and others “Beyond” to an unfamiliar planet far from home.
This setup matters if you want to grasp how Metroid Prime 4 is built. For instance, once Samus is stranded, her signature ship is gone. There’s no open sequence of planet-hopping to lean on. Instead, she lands on a single world that looks oddly like The Legend of Zelda’s Hyrule—specifically, the version tied to an earlier release, such as Ocarina of Time.
Put it like this: the broad sandy stretch in Prime 4 is comparable to Hyrule Field. It acts as a relatively underpopulated hub that links biomes with very different vibes at the margins of the map. In practice, five major areas are connected through the desert—an energetic forest, a mechanical factory that’s been constantly battered by storms, a research station perched on a frozen peak, a forge hidden inside a volcano, and a deep underground mine.
Think of these sections the way you’d think of dungeons in the best Zelda tradition, but delivered with a Metroid sensibility. Vi-O-La, Samus’ brand-new motorcycle, is essentially the equivalent of Epona here, letting you zip across the desert quickly. And picture the massive centerpiece rising from the sand like Ganon’s Castle—present and compelling at all times, yet sealed behind a forcefield and not accessible until later in the journey.
Inside those dungeons—and yes, I’ll keep calling them that, because that’s very much the feel—you’ll get the familiar Metroid Prime style at its core. You enter, explore, fight enemies, handle small puzzles, and eventually earn a new ability. That skill then becomes the key for opening sections of the dungeon you couldn’t reach before, pushing you toward the boss fight. After that, you can step back out and head to the next area. There’s also a touch of classic Metroid revisiting: after you finish dungeon three, you can return to dungeons one and two with your new item to uncover additional rooms, complete with fresh puzzles and extra treasure. Some activities are entirely optional, while others are tied directly to the story.
This kind of backtracking has been part of Metroid since moving through Zebes back in 1986. What’s particularly interesting is that, here, the pattern brings another Zelda game to mind and continues the comparison. The approach of revisiting somewhat bigger areas and then going deeper to progress the narrative feels similar to Skyward Sword. Plus, one of Prime 4’s two new additions echoes Skyward Sword’s “Beetle,” letting you send out a projectile and guide it while it’s in the air. It’s handy for a variety of puzzles and in multiple boss encounters.
The other major new feature is Samus’ psychic powers. While they don’t truly break new ground in terms of gameplay—building platforms or improvised grapple points here, plus a bit of telekinesis there—they do add a satisfying polish to how her kit feels. Most of the remaining unlocks are simply different takes on familiar Metroid tools, either reworking known options with “Psychic” tacked on for unclear reasons (the Psychic Boost Ball is basically the Boost Ball you already know and like) or introducing missile-style versions of elemental beam weapons.
As you work through these dungeons, the hours seem to pass in a flash. Like the abilities themselves, nothing here feels genuinely earth-shattering, but what does stand out is how confidently it presents the elements that made the earlier Metroid Prime entries so memorable. To borrow a cliché, I really appreciated the central dungeon content, even if I also felt it could be a bit bland at times. They’re enjoyable, but in the end, they’re fairly easy to forget.
A standout point is how each area subtly changes over time. A key theme in Prime 4 is that every region is tied to an ancient civilization that’s long gone—and you’re gathering keys and relics from that era to find an exit plan for the planet. In many cases, your main task inside each dungeon is to track down and reactivate its power generator so you can obtain what you need. But
Upon doing so, every dungeon shifts shape: the factory springs into motion, filled with constant movement and looming electrical hazards. The icy research facility’s doors begin to
creak open, revealing what had been under investigation, as the surge of energy starts melting the ice from within—until water pours down everywhere.
I enjoyed this choice—it builds a strong sense of presence. It also highlights how Prime 4 may well be the most visually striking Nintendo release, especially for fans of semi-realistic art styles. On Switch 2 at 4K and 60fps, it looks genuinely impressive. The 120fps option is a bit less compelling, and Metroid doesn’t really lean into super fast pacing—so while the mode is useful, I’d still suggest playing at 60fps to best appreciate the visuals on offer.
That said, it’s impossible to focus on atmosphere without calling out the obvious “elephant in the room”: Samus isn’t alone on this mysterious planet. Five Federation space marines arrived alongside her, transported at the same time, and in every dungeon you’ll pair up with at least one of them—supporting and helping to rescue them. This is a Metroid entry with allies, and those allies give you a real base of operations that you’ll return to frequently as the story develops. Some items Samus picks up can be used right away, but other times you’ll need to go back to base so your resident engineer can examine and fit them.
A lot of conversation will come up around these marines, and I expect they’ll be heavily scrutinized. It’s such a substantial subject that I wrote a separate article just to dig into it, so I won’t go too far here. In short, though, I think the marines work well as broadly recognizable archetypes for this kind of universe and storytelling.
I understand that some players might find them annoying, but what stood out to me even more—oddly enough—is how the narrative brings in a range of talkative companions for Samus to recruit and lead, while simultaneously portraying the protagonist as completely mute. They speak to her, or rather at her, and she answers only with unwavering silence. Even her body language doesn’t carry the same expressiveness you could see in 2021’s outstanding Metroid Dread. It struck me as strange, and it didn’t really click for me. I’m not saying Samus needs to be spilling her emotions every moment, like in the widely criticized story of Metroid: Other M, but there’s room for balance. Perhaps you can take a cue from Master Chief—since even the Doom Slayer has a few spoken lines when the moment truly calls for them.
For this review, what’s especially interesting is examining how these interactions feed into the game’s action. Engineer Myles Mackenzie—the character highlighted in the previews—essentially plays the role of a Navi-like presence: he stays back at base, yet remains in the mix through radio contact. With Myles in particular, there’s a noticeable push-and-pull, almost like a lively back-and-forth happening inside the development team. How much support is the player expected to rely on?
After a few early hours that can feel fairly heavy-handed, Myles thankfully fades into the background once you head out from the home base. Still, if you spend too long wandering the desert, he’ll pop back in to let you know—quietly but clearly—that you can reach out to him for a hint if you’re unsure where to go. At certain points—usually after finishing one dungeon but before you’ve gained the abilities needed for the next—the game does hand you genuine freedom to work out how to get the keys on your own. But that openness is limited: linger too long, or check an area that isn’t relevant at that stage, and Myles returns to the radio with upbeat reminders. “Hey, Samus—wasn’t there a door you couldn’t open in the volcano?” What you can feel underneath is the balancing act of wanting players to experience the “search” side of the “search-action” label, without overbearing guidance undermining the desire to keep frustration from taking over. That may be the hardest part of building a game like this, particularly for Nintendo, in 2025.
The main desert—something you’ll cross again and again while traveling between the core areas—is pleasant enough. Vi-O-La, the bike, is a real highlight, and it offers a handful of engaging, simple mechanics worth messing around with. Even so, the desert still feels as though it may have been created separately from the rest of the game. I genuinely started to wonder whether it was assigned to another team. Even the loading sections hint at that, since they don’t connect straight to the dungeons. Each time you transition, there’s a loading zone first, followed by a brief “staging” area you can cross in roughly a minute, then you enter the dungeon.
There’s a small selection of things to do across the desert, but honestly, it’s a short list. You can unlock several underground shrines (See! Zelda returns!), and each one gives an upgrade tied to one of your main weapons. As the game goes on, you’ll also need to retrieve some scattered Federation gear. Then there are green crystals: you can ride through them and smash them with satisfying force, and they’re required for a few upgrades. You bring the collected crystals back to a magical tree (or something like it) at your home base, where they’re used. Crossing the desert could easily become exhausting, but it doesn’t—because biking is enjoyable. In fact, I kept wishing there were more opportunities to use the bike, since it only shows up a couple of times during dungeons. It would’ve been great to see it play a bigger role.
All of this description is meant to capture, I hope, the captivating core essence
At its core, Metroid Prime 4 feels like something you can measure against the earlier Metroid Prime entries. To a certain extent, it plays like “Metroid Prime by the numbers,” offering a recognizable continuation of what the series has already established. Yet in other areas, it also brings in a handful of fresh concepts—though many of them seem adapted from ideas and structures that have shown up elsewhere. By the way, this is an especially tough game to review, because it’s the kind of experience you may genuinely savor right through to the end.
There are plenty of exciting beats throughout the game that, when you step back, don’t fully land. It’s telling, I think, that after finishing it I felt a surge of Metroid excitement—yet I still had no desire to jump back in for a hard-mode, 100 percent playthrough aimed at squeezing out additional rewards. Instead, I went right back and reinstalled Metroid: Dread. Honestly, that might be the most telling takeaway of all.
A big part of my muted feelings likely comes from the closing stretch. Once you’ve cleared all five “main” dungeons, there’s still a lot of leftover chores. I’m used to late-game cleanup, but if we’re leaning into the Zelda comparison, this feels like the quest for Triforce Pieces. Those green crystals in the desert that you smash—apparently you have to destroy a particular number before the endgame will even begin. So if you’ve already wrapped up everything else, you end up circling the desert, breaking crystals just to unlock what’s next. I did smash them carefully as I went, hoping for upgrades, but I still wound up spending too long on dull crystal scavenging once the endgame finally started. As I wrote in my notes, it’s “like if GTA required you to knock down a set number of lampposts before you could move on.”
When the time finally came to start the end, I felt disappointed by what followed. I expected a major finale—something that resolves the story threads the game has been building and then throws one last, thrilling gauntlet at the skills you’ve learned. Instead, without spoiling anything that’s embargoed, the mysterious tower that’s been teasing you throughout the adventure lands on a rather simple, and ultimately underwhelming, anticlimax.
To be fair, I can’t speak to the “complete” ending, because we all know Metroid games like to hide extra surprises behind hard mode, quick completion times, and full completion percentages. Still, on Normal Mode with 100 percent items and roughly 80 percent of scans, I was left genuinely confused by the result. I understand the antagonist’s basic driving motivations, but I don’t see how to clearly explain what their real endgame is beyond simply causing problems. On top of that, I don’t think the bonds the game tries to build with those marines deliver much, even as it attempts to stir up an emotional response. The main narrative thread involving the ancient alien connection is set up, escalates, and concludes—but anything beyond that feels incomplete and frustrating, even after rereading the scan text closely.
No matter how much you enjoy the core gameplay, finishing a story-focused game and thinking, “That’s it?” is hard to shake. Don’t tell me Metroid isn’t built around narrative—back in 1993, I remember feeling a real satisfaction from the story as it guided that baby Metroid to safety in monochrome, all without dialogue. I also understood the emotional weight behind Samus deciding to protect the very force she spent the entire game battling.
After seeing this game’s ending, I messaged another critic: “I’m left perplexed,” and then followed it up with a string of questions to figure out whether I’d missed something. A disappointing finale isn’t automatically a disaster. But in Metroid Prime 4, it reinforces a larger sense of mild letdown, especially when set against several genuinely impressive and easy-to-like elements.
It’s one of those games that—sorry, another cliché—ends up feeling like less than the sum of its parts. I did have fun with it. When you’re inside those dungeons, the level design is sharp and confident, and the atmosphere stays strong even when the NPCs are chatty. The puzzling boss fights are a real highlight: you might die once, then use that experience to “download” a plan for wiping the boss on your second go. Those moments capture the classic Metroid spirit. But the way everything ties together just doesn’t quite work. In fact, those exhilarating peaks make the shortcomings stand out all the more—this is a game that could have, and maybe should have, been much better.
A copy of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was provided for this review by Nintendo.