Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Preview - The Jury's Still Out

It has been four years since the last time we got to take Samus for a run out in any capacity and almost two decades since we've had an entry in the mainline Metroid Prime series, so Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has quite the task on its hands to continue what is, for many people, their favorite video game franchise of all-time.

After previewing the game for a couple of hours, it is clear that there is plenty here to enjoy, but the success of this game is, to me at least, dependent on two factors. The first, as with any game, is that it needs to be fun to play in its own right, maintaining the quality the series has become known for. The second is that it needs to be instantly recognisable as the game series we all grew up on, and it's there that this latest effort may begin to struggle to keep up.

Much of Metroid Prime 4’s appeal will likely be in the continuation of the story for many, so this preview will do its best not to spoil too much of it. The game opens up with Samus being called in by the Galactic Federation in order to defend a major base from an attack by those pesky space pirates. After some other bits and bobs, you'll end up on another world where you'll encounter the remnants of an extinct civilisation to whom Samus is essentially a prophesied visitor. Her role is to ensure that they live on via the technology they created which Samus can bring to the masses through her actions in the game.

Beyond that, you'll have to explore the title for yourself once you get your hands on the game but there's enough there that it shouldn't come as a disappointment to any existing Metroid fans, as well as being a relatively accessible onboarding experience for those who have had little contact with the franchise to date.

Nintendo

The first person Metroid combat is here again and it feels relatively smooth and well-designed, gradually introducing the major elements of fighting to the player so that it isn't overwhelming. Initially, you'll have a standard shot and you can long press to get a more powerful explosive shot to take out enemies more quickly or to break down otherwise impossible barriers. The big addition to the gameplay this time around is the psychic powers you accrue relatively early on. These play a huge role in several facets of the game including your general exploration, as well as combat, where some of the abilities you gain are crucial to emerging victorious.

Starting with the exploration and puzzle elements, your psychic powers are regularly used to allow you to progress further in each individual area. For example, Samus will come across statues with glowing purple stones in their heads that you can pluck down using your psychic powers before placing them in receptacles which then open doors. Equally, there are other door puzzles where you need to trace the psychic powers down specific lines in order to open the next area.

The system is perfectly fine as a method of keeping exploration fresh and adding puzzle elements, but it’s easy to see how they could become repetitive if overused across the full game (though this wasn’t the case during the brief preview). Additionally, the lack of complexity actually just occasionally made it feel more like filler content rather than anything truly innovative or exciting to use.

The psychic powers also affect your weapon and how it can be used. The biggest example of this we were shown and got to use is essentially a tracer bullet that you can manually control as the player. While you're exploring, you can guide this bullet through smaller gaps to interact with features on the other side of otherwise locked doors or sealed walls. It's another path to progression and essentially amounts to a fun minigame If you use the psychic bullets to work out how to get to the next area and scout ahead. It’s much more interactive than the other psychic powers we tried out, and hopefully similar systems are employed across the full game, over the more rudimentary options.

Nintendo

These tracer rounds also show up in combat as another method of defeating enemies. In the boss fight we got to play through, you had to hit three critical weak points within a very short space of time. This would have been essentially impossible with our standard arsenal, but with the time slowing effects of the tracer bullet, it became a much easier proposition. Combining these new psychic armaments with your more traditional weapon types actually feels pretty good and it makes you think more as the player about how you approach major points in the combat.

Our preview did not extend to Samus's new ride so I don't have any thoughts on the bike specifically as of yet. That said, I do have some concerns about the way the game feels right now. As someone who has played almost every Metroid game since the second one, the limited window we had to play did not do enough to convince me that this latest release will manage to replicate the feeling that fans are looking for when they sit down to play. The motorbike elements in the trailer don't do anything to assuage those concerns - and if anything, it makes me a little more worried for the game as an overall package. It's a really strange comment to have to make because there is nothing technically wrong with the game, but the direction the developers have taken the game in is high risk when so much of what players are looking for is already found in the older games of the series.

Some of the departures are well-founded and rooted in updating the game for a modern audience, but others feel out of place or forced in where they really aren't needed. For the most part, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond looks fantastic and the environments are some of the more varied and interesting in any Nintendo Switch 2 game, let alone Metroid more generally.

The preview leads me to believe that the game could be one of the more divisive entries in the franchise, but I do live in hope that the broader package will make everything make more sense. The fundamental gameplay elements are all there, and everything looks awesome, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if Metroid Prime 4: Beyond as an entire package was impressive. But doubts remain, and there are questions to be answered. I’ve got everything crossed that the developer manages to do so.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond launches on 4 December on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.