Metroid Prime 4 Review: Beyond Is Prime When It Leaves the Desert

Eighteen years is long enough to mythologise a loading screen. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond arrived on 4 December 2025 and spent its first hour daring me to hate the motorcycle. I did, a bit. Then Volt Forge happened, the visor fogged, and Retro Studios remembered the job: put Samus in a room that has a history, and shut up.

This is a GamePlayer review from a Switch 2 playthrough with a Pro Controller, plus enough Switch handheld time to know which version Australians should spend money on. Hub: /games/metroid-prime-4/. /metroid-prime-4-beyond-review/ redirects here.

Viewros, not another Brinstar photocopy

Samus is dumped on Viewros and told to find a way home while learning what happened to the Lamorn. The new sentence is psychic: purple telekinesis, redirected charged shots, Morph Ball momentum that finally feels like a toy instead of a leftover. The old sentence is intact — Charge Beam, bombs, elemental beams that recolour the arm cannon like 2002 never ended.

I do not need a new religion. I need a room that frames its door. Prime 4 still knows how to open a door.

The structure is closer to Prime 2 and 3 than to Prime 1's spiderweb. Each biome is a dungeon you mostly finish on the first visit: find the upgrade, kill the boss, leave a mark on the map for the missile you cannot reach yet. That will offend people who wanted to get lost for a week. It is also why this is the easiest Prime to hand a new player after Prime Remastered.

Combat is lock-on, strafe, missile, dodge. Sparse when the game is being Prime. Wave-based when it is being a 2006 corridor shooter. Bosses are the apology — a plant with a temper, one-on-one shootouts, the occasional spectacle that justifies the wait.

Controls: dual-stick plus optional motion when locked on is the setup I finished with. Separated Joy-Con is fine. Mouse controls exist because Switch 2 can, and they are a party trick I used for twelve minutes.

The desert tax

Sol Valley is the review's villain. It is the hub between the good places, a sand commute with a motorcycle that controls well and has nowhere interesting to be. A few shrine-shaped puzzles sit on the map like someone played Breath of the Wild and took the wrong notes. A main objective asks you to ram green energy crystals so Lamorn history can be saved. The lore is lovely. The verb is a chore that was tired the last time a Prime game shipped.

I chipped away at the crystals on the way to real levels. That is the intended mercy. It is still a tax.

When the game leaves the sand, it is the wait. Gothic factories. Horror isolation. Rain on the visor. Scan entries that make a machine's job more interesting than the puzzle it is attached to. Kenji Yamamoto and company still know what a Prime melody is for.

You spend more than half the runtime alone. That is the sentence Metroid fans needed in the trailer comments. The Galactic Federation companions exist for the other half: a nerd, a wounded sniper, a superfan who loses their mind at the Morph Ball. They are funnier than the internet wanted them to be and chatty in the exact way a Metroid room should not be. Specialist MacKenzie will radio you a hint you did not ask for. I wanted a toggle. I did not get one.

Sylux, the marketing villain, is thinner than his amiibo. The Lamorn history is the actual story. I can live with that. I cannot pretend the poster matched the plot.

Consensus, credited

According to IGN, Beyond is 8/10 — an "uneven but overall impressive revival" whose open hub "connects breathtaking areas" and also wastes your time. That is my playthrough with the adjectives in a different order.

WellPlayed's Kieron Verbrugge scored it 8.5/10 after spending the first hours "huffing and guffawing" at the bike and the NPCs, then deciding the wrinkles "iron out nicely." I am with Kieron on the thaw. I am slightly meaner on Sol Valley because I live in a country that already has enough beige commutes.

Australia: Switch 2 is the show

Nintendo exclusive. eShop AU, EB, JB. First-party Nintendo money. The Switch 2 version is the one that looks like a 2025 game — 4K60, a 120 option if you want the smoothness more than the pixels. The Switch version is how a lot of OLED households will meet it, and it is the one I would only buy on a sale if the desert already bored you in the Treehouse footage.

You do not need the trilogy. Prime Remastered is the kinder on-ramp if you want to know why people still say "scan everything."

For the rest of the 2025–26 Nintendo pile, this sits next to Silksong as a game that believes in rooms, and next to Pokémon Legends Z-A as a Switch 2 exclusive that actually used the hardware. The Nintendo archive is the filter. The hub is the collection point.

Verdict

8.2/10. Prime 4 is a great Metroid when it is a Metroid. It is a fine motorcycle game when it is embarrassed about the motorcycle. Buy it on Switch 2 if a lonely visor still does something to your shoulders. Wait if you wanted an open world and not a commute between masterpieces.