In recent years, Nintendo has become extremely efficient when it comes to announcing and releasing its games. Tears of the Kingdom aside, there has mostly been only a handful of months between the initial announcement and the release of many of the company's major software titles.
The same, however, cannot be said for Metroid Prime 4. Initially announced on June 13th, 2017 (nearly 7 years ago), the game's development was rebooted exactly 5 years ago, with an announcement posted on Nintendo's YouTube channel on January 25th, 2019 from Nintendo EPD's Shinya Takahashi (thanks, Stealth).
At the time, Takahashi stated:
"We must let you know that the current development progress has not reached the standards we seek in a sequel to the Metroid Prime series. Nintendo always strives for the highest quality in our games; and in the development phase, we challenge ourselves and confront whether the game is living up to that quality on a daily basis. If we're not satisfied with the quality, we aren't able to deliver it to our customers with confidence, and the game will not live up to our fans' expectations."
He went on to state that producer Kensuke Tanabe would go on to work in collaboration with Retro Studios, the original development studio for the Metroid Prime trilogy. Before this, the game was reportedly being worked on by Bandai Namco Studios, but this was never officially confirmed by Nintendo.
At the time of writing, Metroid Prime 4's release date is still 'TBA'. Many, including us, are beginning to speculate whether the title might be earmarked for the Switch's eventual successor, but again, we'll have to wait for official word from Nintendo.
Anytime now... Anytime... Come on, Nintendo.