Marking Samus Aran’s long-awaited Prime return, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond drops into a hostile world with a mission that quickly spirals into a planetwide conflict. Despite mystery clouding its reveal, Nintendo’s latest deep dive has given us a clear picture of how this adventure will play: blending wide-linear exploration, psychic-powered manoeuvring, fluid combat, and high-stakes encounters against a horde of powerful opponents. From new traversal tools, to visual overhauls and cross-hardware performance differences, here are 15 things you need to know before stepping into the Beyond.
You’re on Planet Viewros
Answering a desperate Galactic Federation distress call, Samus Aran descends onto the uncharted planet of Viewros – a world currently under siege by her archrival, Sylux. Its surface is a patchwork of radically distinct biomes: lush jungles pulsing with alien plantlife, colossal war factories, thunderstruck ruins, frozen laboratories, and volcanic industrial hubs. Viewros is both hostile and hypnotic, with secrets tied to long-lost civilisation Lamorn nestled within. As Samus investigates, the planet’s varied terrain forms the backdrop to a campaign of exploration, infiltration, and cosmic gunplay,
Wheel-and-Spoke Overworld Design
Viewros revolves around a central desert hub known as Sol Valley, a scorched expanse connecting all its major biomes. Only a small group of reporters have explored the valley first-hand, but Nintendo’s gameplay deep dive showcases its roadless sightlines and environmental barrenness. One concern, perhaps, is that an area this exposed risks diluting the Prime series’ mysterious atmosphere – but until you experience it for yourself, Sol Valley remains an intriguing wildcard.
Vi-O-La Bike Traversal
Still, crossing Sol Valley is made dramatically more efficient thanks to the Vi-O-La Bike – a summonable two-wheeler that Samus rides across the sand. It’s agile, capable of tight turns, smashing energy crystals, and even mid-drift combat attacks. Samus can lock onto enemies while mounted, weaving between rolling drones and rocky constructs with a flash of motocross flair. Crucially, the bike can be summoned in any biome where there’s room to accelerate, expanding its traversal potential to moment-to-moment decisions rather than fixed to set pieces.
Scanning is Central to Progression
Samus’ scan visor is the visual key which unlocks Viewros’ information warchest, highlighting objects, devices, enemies, devices, flora, fauna, environmental clues, and anything relevant to navigation. Scanning isn’t optional – it’s a core mechanic which reveals how to open routes, manipulate machinery, interpret energy flow, and understand what befell the Lamorn. Much of Beyond’s storytelling is delivered environmentally, with scanning the backbone in how you read the world.
New Power: Psychic and Telekinetic Combat Ability
Samus’ suit now channels a violet-hued psychic energy that reshapes her armour and arsenal. Projectiles can curve mid-air under mental direction, beams can lock onto multi-angle trajectories, and Psychic Gloves allow her to seize, shove, and redirect environmental hazards and enemy mobs. These powers give her a new combat identity, centring less on pure firepower and more on control, accuracy, and spatial dominance.
New Power: Verticality and Traversal Through Psychic Tech
Psychic abilities don’t stop at combat. They introduce an entirely new layer of verticality to Viewros: violet trackways sling Samus through the air in Morph Ball form; stretchable psychic “threads” attach to anchor points, functioning like telekinetic grapples; environmental puzzles revolve around shifting energy conduits, rotating machinery, and guiding motes to unlock ancient Lamorn systems. These additions elevate Beyond’s traversal into something more kinetic, aerial, and puzzle-driven.
Galactic Federation Troopers Need Rescue
Just like Samus, numerous Galactic Federation Troopers were scattered across Viewros during Sylax’s assault, each now transmitting distress signals from deep within the planet’s hazardous biomes. As you explore, you’ll track down these lost operatives and pull them out of crises.
Some will briefly fight alongside Samus, with several holding upgrades which they’ll pass on. This means rescues are embedded directly into progression – they’re not to be treated as optional detours.
Trooper Companions Come With a Warning
The most discussed example so far is Myles McKenzie, a bespeckled engineer you’ll encounter early on. Presenting Samus with a missile upgrade demonstrates his gratitude is immediate, but unfortunately so is his commentary. His quips, hints, and sarcastic asides run counter to Beyond’s atmospheric tone, creating an uncomfortable tension between Samus’ silence and his banal chatter. If Myles represents the approach to be taken by the rest of the rescued troopers, there’s a genuine risk that portions of the game will feel over-explained or, worse, annoying.
Sylux Takes Centre Stage
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond positions Sylux as the architect of the Viewros invasion. He’s a calculating force, a powerful, masked, bounty hunter with deep-seated hatred for the Federation. Footage highlights his advanced tech and weaponry – likely stolen from the Federation’s research – his command over specialised drones, and a near-equal footing with Samus as a skilled warrior and marksman. No longer a throwaway fixture, Sylux uses his vendetta against Samus to shape Viewros’ planet-wide conflict. Not much else is known about him, so we’ll need to wait and see just how engaging he is as an adversary.
Expanded Combat Fluidity
Beyond psychic powers, Nintendo isn’t introducing sweeping changes to Samus’ ability in Beyond. However, gameplay demos do emphasise a shift in fluidity: Samus moves faster, aims more responsively, and transitions between abilities – bodied form to Morph Ball, for instance – much more seamlessly. Her streamlined movements all contribute to a combat style that’s crisp, modern, and readable. Beyond’s battling mixes mobility, verticality, scanning strategy, environmental manipulation, and intense firepower into a smooth rhythm beyond what fans may have expected.
Dialled Up Boss Battles
Early footage showcases Samus’ clash with Aberex, a plant-like enemy which shifts shield position, ejects violent shockwaves, and transforms mid-fight via a power-up. Mechanic-wise, you’ll need to be extremely adept – alternating weak point targeting, using the Morph Ball for evasion, and blasting the Control Beam with precision to best them. As far as tutorial bosses go, Aberex is a tough one, indicating, perhaps, Metroid Prime 4 is poised to test every skill while utilising every tool and power-up Samus has in her arsenal.
The Lamorn Are The Heart of Viewros’ Mystery
Throughout Samus’ adventure, remnants of the Lamorn civilization loom over everything. Their ruins house energy systems, dormant machinery, and coded glyphs. Their presence isn’t just a background detail – they are woven directly into puzzles, traversal, knowledge, and narrative, and the planet’s underlying architecture. Through scanning, studying, and environmental interaction, you’ll piece together a story that Viewros itself seems eager to conceal.
Exploration is “Wide-Linear”, not Open World
Beyond’s structure has been described as “wide” rather than “open”, with regions offering multiple paths, hidden zones, and branching exploration, but progress exuding platforming flavour in its requirement to revisit areas once the right tools and upgrades have been acquired. The Sol Valley itself allows large-scale navigation, whereas each biome feels handcrafted, layered, and laced with secrets which reward curiosity. There’s freedom yet, kept at arm’s length by thinly-veiled boundaries.
Significant Visual Overhaul
Beyond features a fresh visual aesthetic which moves away from photorealism towards a more memorable, unique, almost 70s sci-fi appearance. Suggesting that more powerful hardware drives the game’s art style, Metroid Prime 4 shimmers with dense foliage, shines with bioluminescent spores, and dynamically reflects an armour’s sheen. These changes serve to heighten immersion through mood rather than pure fidelity.
SWITCH 2 TECH DETAILS
That said, if you’re playing Metroid Prime 4: Beyond on Switch 2 you’ll experience superior performance: reports indicate up to 120fps at 1080p when docked in performance mode, while a separate quality mode suggests 4K resolution at 60fps. Also, the Switch 2 version benefits from HDR support, improved texture models, and sharp environmental detail. Whether higher frame rates or picture quality, the Switch 2 version is set to support the game’s fluid movement via smooth camera motion and clearer aiming. Worth mentioning however: core gameplay pillars remain unchanged on both the Switch and Switch 2 versions.
