Beyond is shaping up to be a glorious return for Samus

I have always appreciated Metroid series for how diverse it is within Nintendo's catalogue. Many of the Japanese gaming giant's family-friendly franchises, including colorful platformers such as Mario And Kirby or fantasy adventures such as Zeldadarker sci-fi action film focused on shooting Metroid the experience is just completely different.

While I'm browsing through the extensive portion of the latest installment in the cult series, Metroid Prime 4: BeyondI immediately remember all these special qualities. Above all, there is a sense of wonder and mystery about it. Metroid. Walking through this strange Pandora of AvatarThe tropical jungle-style setting, filled with towering ritual structures, immediately motivated me to explore further to uncover even more of its secrets. This feeling only continues as I transform into a Morph Ball and enter a small mountainous chasm, rolling between thin, eerily shimmering walls filled with alien bugs to the tune of creepy sci-fi music.

I don't really know for sure Why I do all of this, mind you. Nintendo remains fairly reserved regarding Outsidebroader narrative, except confirming that Sylux, the bounty hunter, is Samus' rival who was introduced in the DS game Metroid Prime Huntersvillain. But that's all incredible atmospheric, which is more than enough to create a high level of intrigue.

I'm eventually greeted by larger insectoids flying around and spraying acid projectiles, and naturally I return fire with Samus' signature Arm Cannon. It's the fast-paced first-person shooting game you'd expect. Metroid Prime And the best part is that you can use the new Joy-Con 2 mouse feature to aim if you want. However, I personally only find this comfortable in the short term, as the relatively small Joy-Con 2 is not very comfortable for long-term use, unlike a traditional mouse. Luckily, you can simply use the Joy-Con motion controls or the Pro Controller, the latter of which I prefer.

But of course Outside there are also a few new tricks up its sleeve. One of the most notable marketing achievements so far is Samus' ability to traverse vast sandy areas on the new Vi-O-La bike, but this wasn't available in my demo. What am I did however, some of Samus' new psychic abilities are worth checking out. After interacting with ancient structures, our hero essentially gains telekinesis. In classic Metroid This means previously inaccessible areas open up, in this case allowing you to move orbs of energy between or within objects to open doors and other obstacles. While the actual use of telekinesis in my demo was quite simple, essentially just moving energy within a fixed circle, I hope that over time the uses for these abilities will expand significantly.

On the other hand, I already like how psychic abilities affect combat. For example, the new Charge Beam allows you to fire and fully control a projectile in the environment, sort of like Batman's remote control batarangs in Batman: Arkham games. In some cases it is simply used to enter a small hole in a wall to clear a blocked path, but it was in a boss fight against a huge tentacled beast similar to a Venus flytrap where it proved particularly resourceful. Zigzagging to avoid the monster's swinging tentacles, I hit them with regular hand cannon shots to remove their barbed armor and leave them vulnerable. However, you'll have to destroy them all at once or they'll regrow, so you'll have to aim your Charge Beam carefully. Once all the tentacles were cut down, the boss became temporarily vulnerable, allowing me to bombard him with my missiles.

If that wasn't enough, the Nintendo rep also teased another nifty combo move that I hadn't thought of. As in the previous Metroid games, Outside allows you to drop small bombs when you're a Morph Ball, but now you can use your psychic power to capture these emitted energy fields and fire them as projectiles. It's easy to imagine how this might not only be useful in some cases, but even required in others. If it's such a compelling combination of Samus' new psychic abilities and traditional cannon arsenal that Outsided already suggested early on, I can't wait to see how it all develops throughout the game.

And, of course, there is much more to learn about this story. In fact, I only have tantalizing information about the five special keys that Samus must collect, the first of which I received after defeating the boss. (This discovery was made by the adorably dim-witted Galactic Federation ally whom Samus saves in the demo, Specialist Miles McKenzie. Thankfully, his presence manifests itself more in the form of random helpful “guy in the chair” interactions, so BasicA deep sense of isolation and tension still lingers as you regularly explore the area on your own.

Overall, I left the demo very impressed by what I saw. So far everything we like Metroid PrimeThe particularly rich sci-fi atmosphere and fast-paced shooting mechanics are back and in great shape, and the new psychic abilities promise a promising gameplay change. Although I still have many questions about this story, I am confident that the answers will satisfy me. We won't have to wait long either, since Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will be released on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 on December 4, 2025. I absolutely can't wait.

Image credit: Nintendo