Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (2025)
April 17, 2026
Did you know that the 'identity crisis' concept was coined by someone named Erik Erikson? A man so confident in his own identity that he doubled down. Erik2son described how adolescents can, at times, wrestle both with their perception of self and how they are perceived by others. Another guy, name less interesting, expanded on this by applying a framework of potential outcomes stemming from this internal dilemma. Let me lay out that framework briefly.
- Foreclosure: here, one emerges from their crisis with an identity that is forced upon them. Whether through rules, parents, customs, or some other external force.
- Diffusion: comes about from letting your options wash over you, a sort of process of elimination in reverse where a lack of curiosity and decision-making leads you to you merely through the passage of time.
- Moratorium: described as 'the active exploration of alternatives'--trying out identities for the sake of it, though maybe never quite landing on something.
- Achievement: is probably preferred from these and comes from a bit of exploration before committing to the bit so to speak.
I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but I think it is good to get an understanding of what I think I'm talking about before I say that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is really Metroid Primetm 4 - Nintendo Switchtm 2 Edition + Interactive Identity Crisis Beyond. Unfortunately this identity crisis shares no lineage with Incredible Crisis (a vastly superior game from the PS1 era) and barely shares lineage with City Crisis (a somewhat inferior title on the PS2). Though we can forgive the Metroid team for that.
Fresh out the gate we immediately see slices of what I'm gesturing towards. The game opens with a approximation of "the Halo experience"--big battles, big views, big stakes. A view of a game that the Metroid series has never been before. A view of a game that Metroid critics have wanted such games to be for years. Though in reality, just a view of a different game. I suppose I could call it a detour, but that would require some beaten path to step off from. Once this intro wraps, we're shown the game's actual structure: collect the five MacGuffins. You've certainly done this before from Assassin's Creed to World of Warcraft, but what is the purpose here? Well, we must save the Lamorn, a newly invented species of alien that fear for their loss of history. A thematic touch that could have been a little too 'on the nose' in a game series that is seeing its first entry in nearly twenty years. Instead, as with the Halo charade, grappling with the loss of history is just another idea left to gather dust for almost the entirety of what remains. So, what are we doing here? Maybe Erik son of Erik was on to something?
Having endured two pitches, the third awaits: the open world game. More appropriately: open hub. We're welcomed to an vast desert that largely serves to facilitate travel to various sectioned off biomes we've visited in other games. The greenery one, the snowy one, the hot one, the stormy one. You get the idea. As a fan of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, at times I wondered whether this spoke-and-hub structure was an attempt to position the Metroid Prime series towards those Zelda fans that find no delight in the open-endedness of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. You know, those fans that for some reason can't appreciate a series of puzzles unless they're all sitting together packed neatly within a larger box. Yet, beyond motioning towards such aspirations in its world design and even in some unlockable items--for instance, Link's 'beetle' is now the 'control beam'--the game again fails. Here, failing to successfully approximate that 'classic' Zelda feeling. Instead, the puzzles rarely feel like puzzles, but instead doors to be unlocked simply by virtue of being the right person at the right place at the right time. The game does call you 'the chosen one' early on, but it is a little unsatisfying when that turns out to mean that Samus just happens to be a skeleton key that makes everything click into place. Even the various hubs were unsatisfying, an initial jungle area was likely the most unique, though most areas including the jungle felt like a series of hallways. Not quite Exit 8 or Backrooms, but getting uncomfortably close to such in the Mines where each hallway simply served to lead Samus to and from monotonous swarm fights. The exception to break this rule was briefly the Volt area, a refreshing take compared to the rest of the map, but for the fact that the game later does that same trick again with a fire filter.
Could this instead be a Forza Horizon-like? I did have to get a driver's license. Still, no it really isn't that either. Though the game does want you to set out on your motorcycle and explore. Here, too I find yet another a bone to pick. Before starting the game, I had heard some complaints about the desert. Mainly that there isn't anything to do out there. I was determined to make a good time out of it, so I put some extra effort into cruising when given the opportunity. I happened upon a shrine, the 'Ring of Thunder Shrine' for anyone paying that much attention, but was quickly informed that I didn't have the necessary item to complete the task at hand. I took this firm blockade as a not-so-subtle hint to cease any and all such exploration until I had the necessary tool. This occurred much later in the game. Once acquired, I was armed with enough keys to reason myself into first finishing my key collection before reengaging in exploration. By the time exploration continued, I was able to gather all sorts of unlockables. Each successive unlock taunted me. I bet you wish you had this before the game hissed as I continued checking those boxes simply for the sake of it. Upgrades with clear prior utility, but any need for such well passed. I would argue that this wasn't even my fault, the game didn't want me to explore until it secretly decided that it did. The ambiguity with which exploration is handled serves as a distinct contrast to the extreme hand-holding that occurs everywhere else in the game. It never wants you to feel lost, not even for a moment. There were times where the game would simply tell me where to go. I would heed the call, and it would tell me again, before I had enough time to even reach the destination it had chosen for me. Just a friendly reminder to make sure I hadn't forgotten why I was heading in the direction I had chosen to direct myself towards upon direction of the director. Maybe some people like to be patronized.
With so few positives to latch onto, I actually found myself enjoying the various characters you're introduced to throughout the story. In the leadup to release, the reaction to these characters was overwhelmingly negative. For the bulk of my playthrough, I felt like this hate was unearned. This changed during the final moments of the game. You spend your time building up a rag-tag crew and band together to take on the big bad at the end. 'Banding together' over sells it as these people mostly serve to hinder Samus in the end. Each teammate can be knocked down, and you have to revive them with some expediency or suffer the consequences. To give the boss some challenge, the boss can cast a wide electrical attack that is still overly telegraphed. Somehow my team regularly chose to ignore these warning signs and instead rush towards the attack in unison. The game did not offer enough time to revive all three downed teammates in one go. Especially when all four of you were in the sights of the enemy at the same time. Success ultimately relied not on any skill or finesse, but instead on whether or not they all went down on that same move. Direct combat with this boss was also frustrating. The fight occurs within a barrier that you can not shoot outside of, yet that boss would regularly move his own hit points outside of this barrier and sit there. No opportunity to inflict damage, but no real attack incoming either. Just everyone hanging out for a little while until the boss decided it wanted to reengage in the fight. Really baffling as I sit here reflecting on it. Well at least the story should wrap up nicely, right? Even on this front, the game had the last laugh. I'll refrain from spoiling how this story resolves for the crew. Suffice to say it is comically unsatisfying. I sat through the credits, assuming there would be some fake out or clarification, but nothing came. Instead, I revisited the home screen and let the music play as I sort of processed how the end of the game served to undermine all the character work that preceded it. As I was doing this, I took in the menu music a little more fully for the first time. I picked up on some western themes in the track. From a distance maybe this game could resemble a Western? Samus, a loner, out on her own in the desert, getting wrapped up in something she didn't anticipate, turning out to be a hero for all those she encountered along the way? I bet they thought about giving her a psychic revolver.
In general, the game feels like it is throwing ideas out to see what will stick. Nothing does. Enemy design, a standout at times in these games, is unremarkable here too. I hope you like Grievers. Where there is some variety, it is almost exclusively showcased with a wide bevy of slow non-threatening slug-likes that you don't really need to engage with. Some of the marketing tried to spice up the new psychic abilities, but ultimately these too were underwhelming. Powers seen throughout the franchise return, now with a purple filter and the word psychic appended. Unlocking weapons doesn't really change the combat loop, as the starting weapon feels the best to use and everything else just feels like a modification on the bitting of the skeleton key that is Samus. If there is engaging gameplay here, I failed to find it. Instead, I was welcomed to a passive trail from start to end lacking challenge, resulting in a experience that is difficult to attach to. Sometimes a game will take a wide range of inspirations and create a new quilt that is greater than the sum of its parts. This game is no quilt, but instead a grab bag of ideas with little to tie these ideas together. In sum, I don't really know what to make of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, but it feels like those behind the game struggled with this too. They could see ideas that they wanted to take the game in, but failed to really dive into any decision. This crisis of identity and its resulting diffusion is the one throughline felt the entire game. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond just sort of hands you the kitchen sink and asks you to find the fun. Good luck.