Gallery: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Is Looking Absolutely Stunning On Switch

Two baby metroids...Samus can't catch a break.

The only thing I want is enhanced movement in this new Prime game.

Please let there be Shinespark sprinting.

It has sixteen times the detail of Metroid Prime 3

GULP GULP GULP

Holy moly, how did they manage to make it look like this. As a high end pc gamer, i am blown away by the way it looks.
Day one for me.

Something tells me, this isn't shown running on the OG Switch, but the Switch 2 hardware.

While the game looks great in motion, I was immediately distracted by the (relatively) low-resolution textures on the ship as Samus emerged, which doesn't bode well for a potential Switch 2 version with better textures/performance (as there was speculation about a cross-generation release a la Twilight Princess/Breath of the Wild).

Retro Studios has some wizards and amazing technology in store for us. Very easy to see why they got the reigns after development restarted. I'd recommend Digital Foundry's video on the stunning Remastered (and the game itself of course) for a deeper dive into just how much effort and wizardry they manage to squeeze out of the ancient Tegra X1.

@Steel76
Considering what I saw from Metroid Prime Remastered, I expect this can run on the original Nintendo Switch hardware.

Calling it now.
This game will either be cross-gen and/or enhanced for Switch 2.

Mark my words, you heard it here first.

Well it’s time. It is here. We just need MP 2 and 3 on Switch which I’m assuming it will come before MP 4 comes out. Maybe the September Direct would shadow drop MP 2 and 3. And MP 4 looks great on Switch so far.

This Direct is clearly one of the best of all.

Metroid Prime, new Mario and Luigi, new Zelda game, a Donkey Kong port (hey it’s something from DK), Ace Attorney investigations collection, and the Dragon Quest games as well. Truly and simply amazing.

If you notice at the end of the GBA online service. The theme to MP3 was playing in the background after perfect dark.

@Vil This is why them and monolithsoft always help out Nintendo when it comes to tech.

I almost cried when I saw my old pal, the scanning mechanic.

People getting far too excited about a few shots of a game probably still running on a PC and possibly a decent way off being finished.

With the trouble this has been through a bit of caution is definitely warranted.

Some keep saying it looks to good to be running on Switch. It proves with talent & amazing artists hardware is almost irrelevant. And yes it does look incredible 😍

Maybe be it is and has always been the artstyle of these game but I don’t find them visually “stunning” as other do. The look is very clean but I don’t see much going on here. Maybe a digital foundry video will help me.

People wondering how it can possibly run on a switch. Simple, it's not an expensive open world title like totk or botw. Narrow hallways and corridors give a lot more room for fidelity.
But also screenshots don't show us if it's locked 60fps either. or even locked 30. botw when it was announced and OG screen shots showed had much higher fidelity than reality when it actually shipped out and could barely maintain 15fps until they greatly reduced grass and some other tweaks

I cannot get over how good this looks they really cooked 😅. Not sure how the Switch is gonna run this that well though I'm wondering if this will be a Twilight Princess/BOTW situation where it'll be a a cross launch for the next console which will probably come out next year

This is lookin fire 🔥

Not really my thing but for all of you who have waited 7 years for this, wait another year, or few months, and play it on Switch 2, no way it isn't enhanced in some way, either frame rate, resolution or HDR. So I suppose if you're playing on a 7" screen that doesn't matter as much, just talking to the 4k HDR TV folk.

The logo seems based on a black hole and accretion disk. I guess we goin in..

@MysticalOS The uploaded trailer is 1080p/60fps. Nintendo isn't one of those companies that leaves things ambiguous. If it's 60fps, a trailer will be uploaded in 60fps. If it's 30fps, it will be uploaded in 30fps.

Also, Nintendo is pretty good about showing trailers running on the hardware it was intended. So, it's a pretty safe bet this is the game running on an actual Switch and not some sneaky "Switch 2" showing.

Despite my initial lukewarm reaction to the graphics during the Direct, I must say the art direction shows great continuity with the previous entries. These screenshots still don't make it look substantially better than MP1 remastered, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe they didn't want to reveal too much at this stage.

Come to think it, I can't recall being very impressed by TOTK from the trailers, but, in-game, some of the vistas made my jaw drop. I'm sure MP4 will have similar moments. The jungle environment shot looks especially intriguing.

Getting this day one on Switch 2. 90% it’s a console release title.

It’s odd that people find this too impressive to be running on Switch, the low poly and texture work if anything make this look a little less stellar than Prime Remastered - Especially that final biome scene.

That’s not my to say it doesn’t look great though, the art direction seems to have deviated into something less realistic than Prime and closer to Dread if anything (which is a compliment).

But yeah, this looks perfectly tailored to switch hardware capabilities from looking at the initial reveal. Nothing out of the ordinary here that I wouldn’t think it can’t handle (plus Retro are tech wizards).

If I got a nickel everytime I've seen someone say "This looks too good for Switch, it must be Switch 2/Pro footage" over the last 3+ years, I'd be Elon Musk by now.

@LadyCharlie I would think it's cross gen, with it looking better on Switch 2. It will be the Switch's swansong. Although I do expect we may get another couple of ports or remasters for Christmas 2025 considering the Switch's vast userbase. We will see...

Metroid Prime had a difficult development on Gamecube. Yet everyone was blown away when the game was released. You could argue that it had that generations best graphics. I like the look of Metroid 4 but the resolution does look low. This is Switch footage but will be enhanced for Switch 2.

I wonder if other hunters will show up in this game, they should try bringing back multiplayer as well. Game wasn't perfect, but I did kinda enjoy Hunter's multiplayer, lol.

But yeah seeing Sylux return is making me think, what if more bounty hunters from Hunters show up? They could bring back a multiplayer mode based on that game. xp

Why we caring about graphics so much? I’m just excited for another Metroid, man. As long as the art direction is solid and it runs/plays well, I’m in.

@Medic_alert Right?! They are probably using yuzu to 😅

@LadyCharlie Definitely not first LOL. A lot of people immediately speculated that this is going to be cross-gen. Especially with Nintendo's history of doing this with Zelda it seems very possible.

@BANJO Hopefully Metroid Prime 2 & 3 will be ported over. Doesn't seem right to just do MP 1 and leave the others stuck on the Gamecube and Wii. They are great games well deserving of a resurrection.

If they pushed the graphics on all games like this i think the switch could live another year

@LadyCharlie I heard it elsewhere like several months ago 🤣

I wouldn't say that the graphics look absolutely stunning, but if it runs at 60fps on Switch smoothly, I won't complain.

@RojoDelMal lmao true, it was, amazingly, one of the highlights of the trailer for me

@Banjo- exactly, I care more about performance, if it doesn't run well it'll be really, really disappointing

@Fizza I think it’s the og switch hardware the textures don’t look great and most likely switch 2 will look better

@gabrigoes Yes, I enjoyed the Metroid Prime games on GC and Wii and I would be very disappointed if Metroid Prime 4 didn't run at 60fps on Switch after 18 years.

@Qwertyninty I don't think it does either. It just like another Metroid Prime. Which is fine, but I was hoping for a little more.

As far as the looks go. Meh, I'd say Uncharted 4 looks better than this easily, and that's an 8 year old game. The Switch just doesn't handle these types of visuals very well. So when people say it looks ''stunning'', yeah no, it looks like a Metroid Prime for Switch.

At first I thought thinking this was a trailer for Prime 2 or 3 was a bad thing, but in brief retrospect, it's a good thing. That's what we want from a sequel. More!

I just hope the last bit of the trailer showing the more open, lush, brighter, livlier, colorful world is a hint at what's really in store once the team finished polishing things up.

@Tyranexx Imagine beating a Metroid Prime 2 boss and forget to scan. 🤣

I stand corrected, I always thought they’d shift this project over to the successor system.

Looks great! It’s probably not for me (I suck at FPS).

@Hyrulewarrior I agree, textures look OK, but plenty of room for improvements on switch 2.

it looks about as good as any Switch title could look which isn't that great but impressive given the hardware. it's begging for a next-gen version (which must exist) so why roll out this version as the first-look if it's not releasing till 2025? weird marketing decision tbh.

Looks great and all, but one of my main beefs with the Metroid Prime series is you never get to see Samus in her badass armour outside of cutscenes. I suppose that's an issue I have with FPS in general. I think a Metroid game with an over the shoulder RE4 style camera could be really cool.

Developers know how best to push the technology towards the end of a console's life, so the graphics don't surprise me.

See the progression with the NES Mario games and Aladdin on that console. DKC, Killer Instinct, Sim City 2000, and Yoshi's Island on the SNES, and so on...

@Fizza The Metroid Prime games were able to look a lot better than many other games on the Gamecube and Wii in part due to the fact that the games are segmented into smallish rooms with high detail. It looks like they're doing the same thing here. For example, you can see heavy use of fog in those detailed scenes, which would help allow the nearby world to have more detail.

One place you can really see the (smart) graphical compromises is in the closing shot of the trailer showing the giant tree in the distance. You can see that the areas where Samus will traverse are higher in detail, but if you look at the mountainside in the distance, there doesn't look to be any geometry except for the mountain itself-- the trees, rocks, etc. are all just a flat texture. Also, if you look at the canopy of the giant tree, you can tell there are lower resolution, large sprites making up the leaves at the edges, and that much of the geometry of the canopy is flat or close to flat.

I am no expert, but these details tell me that this is likely running on original Switch hardware.

@Steel76 Have you seen The Prime Remaster? Retro are magicians.

Looks like Prime Remastered without the benefit of having compact corridors filled with details. Hope it's crossgen and pushes the next hatdware. Not a stunning trailer, from a storytelling point of view. Just a quick look without any new gameplay references.
We get a couple of looks of open areas, one with a big battle, and the last one with the massive forest, which might mean the fourth chapter might have a broader scope. On this topic the addition of a compass was the only notable novelty in the UI. Happy to finally see something, but I wanted more gameplay.

@NintendoWife You should give Metroid Prime 1 Remastered a try. Metroid Prime games are more about exploration than combat. You can also lock on to enemies, so you don't have to be great at FPS games to enjoy Metroid Prime.

I've had this pre-ordered on Amazon for last the 7 years. Glad I only have to wait one more. lol

@Sonicka While I do agree, and a lot stood out to me as well pointing to this being very in-line for a Switch game; I also think it is a testament to what good lighting can do and how subjective technical decisions can really impress beyond what the numbers would normally suggest.

@Octane Agree. IMO they need to move 3D Metroid to a realistic artstyle. They will never be able to fully push the world and environments the way they want to. Again, it’s a very clean and polished visual experience but nothing stunning or mind blowing to me.

I don't know about the war scenes. Makes it look like a generic FPS. I hope it's just the intro. Otherwise the game looks pretty good, though. It's just we've waited this a long time and it looks like the gameplay is identical with the previous three Metroid Prime games. I hope they can awe and surprise us somehow and preferably without gimmicks.

@Tyranexx Scanning is a bit boring in these games, but at least you can scan anything that you have missed, except the bosses. The bosses in the GC version of Metroid Prime 2 are very difficult! The Wii/Wii U collection is better, I also have it. The Wii Remote is cool for these titles.

Looks amazing. Another great example of how the Switch is far, far more capable than what people give it credit for.

One detail I loved about Prime Remastered was the smoke effect from the mining laser explosions in the Phazon Mines area. Those looked like real live-action movie explosions. It looks as if they're still using the same effect on the MP4 trailer. I like it a lot.

Best scenario would be a PS4 / PS5 situation, you buy it once and is more visually complete on the new hardware. Having said that, the OLED adds a lot to how good a Switch game can look portable, Prime Remastered looks great and this new game looks like it would really benefit from the OLED screen. I'm still hoping Switch 2 launches with an OLED option.

@Steel76 People assumed when Pikmin 4 was first previewed that it was running on Switch 2, but it wasn't. It was running on the good ol' Switch, so no reason to think this is any different. We even have a game that looks comparable on Switch. Can anyone guess what it is?

@Steel76 I've seen people say this about so many games over the years, claiming that footage must be shown on the Switch pro or 2 or whatever.

People also said TOTK couldn't be running on Switch hardware. Everyone's a digital foundry wannabe these days.

I love this, I totally expect it to crossover to Nintendos next console. My word though, it looks amazing, all that hard those developers have put into it seems to have paid off. Nintendo has really shown the Metroid franchise some real love over theist few years and I couldn't be happier about it. I just hope developers get the appreciation they deserve when it releases.

I recall Nintendo Life doubting that Metroid Prime 4 would be in the Direct lol. You just really don't know with Nintendo. Like many people have said, I'm of the mind that this will be the switch is swan song game for Switch and a launch title for the next Switch.

@vio It would be good if they were ported over, although that's likely too much to hope for this late into the Switches lifespan... You never know though 😄

This will be a BOTW scenario where it’ll launch on the new switch/ predecessor as a launch title, and our current switch. Or just only on new switch,

@Coalescence I remember them saying Splatoon 3 had to be on Switch "Pro" as well..

It’s been an 18 year wait. I’ve changed a lot in that time. I’m not sure I’m much of a Metroid fan anymore. I really liked Prime 1 and Fusion, kind of liked Prime 2 and Zero Mission, but ultimately found those two boring. All the other Metroid’s never interested me enough. I guess with Prime 1 and Fusion, I thought the Metroid series was something that it’s not, or maybe I just grew out of that type of gameplay. Even with the new Legend of Link lol, I’m hesitant due to BOTW 1&2 burnout. The new Zelda appears to be BOTW 2.2.

@Tyranexx What I don't like about Metroid Prime 2 is the dual world, because when trying to complete these games 100% as I did, it was quite frustrating and tiresome, especially because of the lack of clues. I used a guide to find all the collectibles, but these are that kind of games that are more enjoyable not using them, because of the exploration. By the way, I didn't like backtracking in these games, mostly because of the respawning enemies and the routes with bomb jumping 😅.

@Steel76 oh 100% it's Running on switch 2 Hardware, I Firmly believe that this is a Launch Title too.

@ryu_san When do Nintendo ever show off the highlights of a game in development a year before release. Scanning featuring in the trailer is not intended to wow us, it's there to satisfy that. This. Is. Metroid. Prime.

I hope that this time around we will be able to turn off the compass and the minimap...

If there was ever a game that was begging to be held back for the Switch 2, this was it, but of course Nintendo will never give up the chance of selling you the 4K version at some point, unless of course it's a dual format release, where the Switch 2 version, is still hampered by the original hardware.

Very nice, but I am surprised. I thought with the extended wait that the developers would be introducing a new approach to Metroid, like Breath of Wild with Zelda when it came out. A little surprising that it took seven years to yield this, but perhaps this was because of the change in development teams.

@LadyCharlie I absolutely promise you that you were not the first person to say this 😂

The game is looking pretty beautiful, yes. But if you look closely at the screenshots, you can see some small rough edges inherent to the Switch's limitations, mainly about detail. Not to mention, the resolution which clearly caps at 720p.
It's very impressive how they're making this look like a modern Doom game running at 60fps on the Switch, but it can look even better than that. With higher polygon counts, more reflections, geometry tesselation... maybe even more than just detail, like enemy counts and scope size.
They chose performance with this game, now they can choose to enhance the visual detail for the Switch 2.

I was not expecting this until he said one more game abd the screen with the font and words. i jumped out of my seat and yelled metroid? no way, it can't be, no it has to be!! then the intro started and i cried to the skies and pumped my fists in glory to the heavens!!! And OMFG this looks beyond my expectations!! this game is going to 100% blow your f'ind mind cap off!!!!

I hope Nintendo uses the switch 2 hardware to its fullest extent if they released an enhanced version for the switch 2.

@Medic_alert @Steel76 As others here mentioned it doesn't look THAT good. There are things about the game that look good but it doesn't look that much different from prime remastered especially at a glance. Personally, I'm a bit disappointed that the game is limited by Switch hardware because the environments looked pretty cramped which is par for the course for Metroid I guess but there are other things like a lack of foliage in the forest we see at the end of the trailer. It's a very "as good as it gets on switch" looking game.

it will look and run much better on switch 2....

Was scanning not in 2 and 3?

@Steel76 Don't dis Retro Studios like that.

If they do go cross platform that will be a good way to get those of us with discounted preorders on this game to cancel them. I know I’d definitely want the Switch 2 version.

Am I the only one that feels like Metroid Prime 4 doesn’t look any better than Metroid Prime 1 Remaster? Also the gameplay didn’t show anything unique or new and it just looked much of the same. Little disappointed:/

It looks fantastic, but one thing to note, we don’t know if this is actually Switch footage. It maybe footage running on better hardware. 😉

@Higgs_Stranding @Steel76 yeah sure, just like Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Pikmin 4

@Steel76 I suspect that if anything, it may well appear on both - bridging the gap between consoles the way Breath of the Wild did. That, or if you want the full all-singing all-dancing all-kitchen-sinking experience, you get a Switch 2. Same cartridge, but while the OG Switch will still undoubtedly be host to a stunner of a game (anything less after this long will be a massive howler), it’ll have noticeably more oomph on the new one. I’m expecting it to be an utter sock-blower-offer on the S2.

i'm a fan of the 2d metroid games but have yet to get into the prime series. first impression of prime 4 is that it looks flat and lifeless (opening area). it really does look like a remastered 3ds game which is disappointing after such a long wait. hopefully this was a watered down port of the switch 2 release? in either case, gameplay is king, but first impressions were not so good for those viewing this game objectively, seperated from the hype. nintendo's stellar art direction with mario and zelda on the switch really does make up for the hardware limitations in ways that sometimes gets overlooked.

Why does it look like Halo 4?