I also had some hands-on time with Metroid Prime 4, which has me as excited as ever for the way it looks and feels. But Retro Studios has taken back that tactile, visor-fogged sci-fi feel while laying over it modernized controls and pace. But there is one design choice that bothers me, and I worry it’ll eat away at something that has become the trademark of Death Stranding: An annoyingly chatty companion that may dilute the series’ signature solitude.
Back in Their Prime: First Impressions from Fury Green
The hands-on began with Samus Aran landing in a crowded, overgrown area known as Fury Green. It is classic Metroid Prime level design: a tangle of paths that feel linear on the moment-by-moment scale, with locked doors and tantalizing side routes practically demanding you come back later once you have acquired the right tool. Environmental storytelling does a lot of heavy lifting, from felled spacefaring tech to predatory flora that conceals traversal opportunities.
Technically, it is the most advanced that Prime has ever looked. These included a higher-fidelity mode listed as 4K/60FPS on next-gen Nintendo hardware, and an above-1080p frame-rate option (dubbed 1080p/120FPS), both of which ran smoothly without complaint, loaded clear materials and brutal mood lighting. Retro’s art direction does some real work here—clean silhouettes for enemies against rich biome detail mean that legibility never comes at the expense of atmosphere. It’s a reminder that candidates with smart art pipelines can beat the hell out of brute-force rendering, as demonstrated regularly by sites such as Digital Foundry through previous Prime coverage.
Modern Controls Without Compromise in Prime 4 Combat
Prime 4 at long last finally ships with dual-analog aiming standard, and makes it feel as intuitive as any modern shooter while maintaining that thoughtful cadence of Prime’s combat. Snappy snap-to-targeting and quick turnabouts make the dance of death in arenas readable without defanging how dangerous it is to overcommit.
Key among these is a suite of psychic-style powers. One allows Samus to ferry energy motes around the world to recharge dormant devices – a neat merging of puzzle logic and world fiction. Another shoots a momentary beam that freezes time from Samus’s point of view; you can guide the beam to tag two or three targets before it collapses. A late-demo run saw me needing to set off three nodes at once by firing that beam whilst juggling adds and making sure I was in position for a clear line—pure Prime in the way it converts puzzle solution into combat rhythm change.
One Concern: Partners and Chatterboxes in the Demo
Then came the speed bump. Halfway through Fury Green, Samus encounters a stranded Galactic Federation engineer. He’s been fully voiced, sometimes accompanying as a soft “escort-ish” objective and chiming in over comms to remark on puzzles and threats. He’s not meanly written — more glib than heavy-handed — but his appearance changes the tone.
Metroid excels when isolation is a mechanic. In Prime and Prime 2 you were charting ruin’s archaeology through scan logs, ambient hums and your own intuition. When the din of voices outside overtakes us, that still, thin voice is shattered. The series has tiptoed this line in the past — Metroid Other M’s narrative was heavily criticized for undermining female agency, while Federation Force floundered with its restrictive co-op focus within core fan circles. Elsewhere in the wider industry, players have also responded to over-eager hint systems – God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West both tweaked when companion hints pipe up after their launches due to feedback.
There’s no need to cut characters out of Prime 4 in order for the game to succeed, but there is a need for isolation to breathe. In my demo, the engineer’s frequent chit-chat sometimes broke revelations in advance — warning me of hazards I already knew (Ooh, these are going to collapse on you!) or pushing solutions before the environment had chance to teach them. It’s a question of feeling smart versus feeling managed.
What would reassure fans about pacing and companion chatter
There are clean fixes. Frequency sliders for dialogue, option of delayed/minimal puzzle hints and split volume controls between “barks” also protect pacing without sacrificing accessibility. The most recent State of the Game Industry survey by the Game Developers Conference finds that studios are seeking more customizable guidance; Prime 4 is a prime candidate for that sort of fluidity.
Scope matters, too. If that NPC is locked in an opening arc and makes the larger adventure Samus and planet, well, then you keep the vibe. Metroid Dread demonstrated there’s an appetite for tight, challenging design — Nintendo’s own financials point to Dread being the best-selling Metroid game at over 3M units sold — so there’s no reason to overcorrect with relentless chatter.
Bottom line on Metroid Prime 4’s promise and one worry
On feel and fidelity, Metroid Prime 4 is where you’d want it to be: sharp combat in evocative spaces with smart new tools that fit the series logic. My only reservation is a chatty companion, who threatens to talk over the silence that makes Prime such an event. Give players control over the noise, keep Samus incognito when necessary and this could be the definitive return of Nintendo’s coolest bounty hunter.
