Metroid Prime 4 - What We Know So Far

It's been a while since we've seen a Metroid game release. Like, over a decade. Metroid Prime 3 came out in 2007, but it was by no means the final game in the franchise. Nintendo has just been making us all wait for a good, long while before we get to play as our favorite leading lady Samus once more. What's next for her? Here's what we know.

We learned that Nintendo hasn't actually forgotten about Metroid a few years back. At E3 2017, to an undoubtedly happy audience, Nintendo announced that yes, Metroid Prime 4 was indeed in development. After that, there was no official news until January of 2019, when Nintendo updated us through an official video hosted by Shinya Takahashi, head honcho of development at Nintendo. He apologized for not having anything to show after two years. The game just didn't meet the company's high standards yet. In fact, he admitted that development was starting over.

In Takahashi's words, "We have decided to have the producer, Kensuke Tanabe, work in trust and collaboration with the studio that developed the original Metroid Prime series, Retro Studios in the United States, and restart development from the beginning. We did not make this decision lightly. This change will essentially mean restarting development from the beginning, so the completion of the game will be delayed from our initial internal plan."

Considering this, it will likely be a good, long while before we see Metroid Prime 4.

Metroid Prime series producer Kensuke Tanabe has hinted that whatever is next for Metroid, it will be a whole new story. Maybe one about the mysterious Sylux. 

"The stories of Dark Samus and Phazon are done now," he said in an interview with Eurogamer. "So it was Sylux, another hunter from Metroid Prime Hunters at the end of Metroid Prime 3. Personally I'd like to create a story centring around Sylux and Samus." 

We don't know why Sylux hates the Galactic Federation, and by extension, Samus. We don't even know if he (or she, considering the nature of Metroid games) is human. Maybe we'll get to find out when Metroid Prime 4 finally, finally comes out.

The folks working on Metroid Prime 4 were sure at the start that the Nintendo Switch (which was codenamed "NX") would be the new home for Samus. That was, of course, before the delay. Back in 2015, Kensuke Tanabe said, "If we started for Wii U now, it would likely take three years or so. So it would likely now be on Nintendo's NX console." 

Considering this, does that mean Metroid Prime 4 will be on the next iteration of the Switch? Maybe. It seems to depend on how long the game will take to develop now that Tanabe and his team are starting from scratch.

The trailer we have, if you can call it that, is just the number four floating in space, followed by the confirmation that this number did indeed represent Metroid Prime 4, which is in development. It wasn't much, but it managed to get fans incredibly excited and get many a diehard Metroid player hyped for what comes next.