Metroid Prime 4’s Reinvention Is So Radical Early Previews Don’t Recognize It

Metroid Prime 4 is due to release on December 4th, 2025, and some outlets were invited to a hands-on preview. When the embargo lifted, early testers posted their impressions of the first few hours of the game, mainly across the space station intro and a jungle area called Fury Green, and the results were mixed. Although there were some positive impressions, there were also concerns with Samus' interactions with several Galactic Federation troopers—most notably a vocal nerd stereotype character named MacKenzie. Most of the Federation troops stranded on planet Viewros are typical space marine types, but MacKenzie is a nerdy, quippy comic relief character who seems to be detracting from the usual horror vibes of Metroid and Metroid Prime, which included unwelcome gameplay hints stating the obvious.


MacKenzie detracted from the game so significantly that the IGN previewer even opened up the settings menu in hopes of finding a way to disable the tips, but the only apparent recourse was to mute in-game voice acting entirely from the Sound settings menu. While this is a common solution to intrusive or cringey voice acting in video games, it's hardly ideal, and not a step one would expect to take in a Metroid game.

Despite the decidedly negative reactions to the character, it's important to consider some nuance here. For one, these reactions are from the opening moments of the game, and none of the preview footage of various segments we've seen thus far have alluded to this character being a full-time nuisance, like God of War's Atreus or other sidekicks.

While some Nintendo series can be a little hand-holdy, Metroid has historically not been one of them, and sometimes an annoying character in a piece of media is meant to be seen as annoying or scrappy in order to paint the stoic protagonist(s) in a different light. Metal Gear Solid 2 did this, and despite being a woman, Samus has remained one of the most stoic, masculine characters in every scene of every game she's been in, besides the maligned Metroid: Other M, which wasn't an in-house Nintendo production.


Besides the backlash to MacKenzie, other negative impressions seem limited to the game's overall graphical fidelity, which is held back somewhat by needing to be cross-compatible with the Switch and Switch 2. Fortunately, the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game still enables native 4K HDR 60 FPS gameplay in Quality Mode and 1080p HDR 120 FPS gameplay in Performance Mode, which means the Switch 2's extra horsepower isn't going to waste. Even though there are some limits to overall fidelity, previewers still praise the strong art direction, density of scannable wildlife and architectural details across Prime 4, which should make for an immersive experience. Plus, this is the first Metroid release with official mouse support, which is sure to be a plus for longtime FPS fans who may have dabbled in PC emulation with hacked-in mouse aiming.

Other new gameplay elements seem promising too, with expanded peeks at the motorbike verifying that the cool Akira Slide maneuver doubles as a combat tool and it's not just a flashy cutscene. The new psychic powers, including the ability to steer projectiles and manipulate the environment with telekinesis, have also been praised by previewers, and evidence of Metroidvania design stylings linger, especially in larger areas of the game like Fury Green.

We remain cautiously optimistic that Metroid Prime 4 will be a solid entry in the series, and will reserve judgement until the full release of the game next month.