On Switch 2, Metroid Prime 4 has modes so silky and control options so alien that playing it feels like you’re being very naughty indeed.
While the gameplay reveal of the Nintendo Switch 2 was home to a few very exciting all-new experiences, for my money one of the most intriguing at the showcase was very much a known quantity: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.
The demo available of Metroid Prime 4 felt even more familiar to a fan of the series such as myself than the final game is likely to, as it showcased an area of the game that is stripped pretty bare of new stuff. If I had to guess, it’s a sequence right from the top of the game, before Samus gets her power suit upgraded with those telekinetic powers.
In the brief base-under-siege style segment, Samus has access to her usual arm cannon, missiles, scanner, morph ball, and bombs – but that’s it. All of these are very much known quantities. It makes Prime 4 feel like a very simple, iterative sequel to its three predecessors – but we already know from other footage that there’s more going on here, with new abilities and mechanics abound. They just weren’t available in this Switch 2 hands-on.
It seems clear to me, though, that Nintendo and developer Retro Studios chose this segment deliberately. It’s quick and snappy to play, and by keeping things simple, one isn’t distracted from what they really wanted to showcase here – how the essentials of the Metroid Prime experience look and feel on the Switch 2 hardware.
“This is running at 120 frames per second,” the Nintendo representative manning my demo station tells me immediately as I sit down. It’s the first thing they say, in fact, which is unusual – Nintendo never typically focuses on performance metrics. But here, they do – and you can see why.
Sure enough, Metroid Prime 4 Nintendo Switch 2 edition is ultimately a Switch 2 upgrade of a game designed to work on hardware that, if you believe the slightly dubious statistics put out by Nvidia, is ten times weaker. But it is running natively at full HD resolution (4K is also available, but will be 60fps), and, yes, is absolutely silky smooth at 120fps.
