Metroid Prime 4 Reminds Me Of A Departed Friend

A hit of nostalgia and an eye to the future of Metroid

A dangerous artefact with galaxy-spanning ramifications if it were to fall into the wrong hands, stunning skyboxes depicting sci-fi battles, a stoic, power armour clad warrior, mankind on the back foot against a bloodthirsty alien army.

I’m not afraid to admit that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s latest gameplay at the Nintendo Treehouse livestream gave me a very warm feeling inside, not just because our favourite bounty hunter is coming back for the first time since 2007’s Metroid Prime 3: Corruption but because Metroid has, at least for me, replaced the very franchise that the previous entry took so much inspiration from.

I’m talking about Halo.

My personal pick for gaming’s most perfect trilogy, the once reigning king of the FPS genre is now laid in state on Microsoft’s Game Pass, the decaying corpse of its former self, abandoned by its original developer, hopelessly mismanaged and relevant only when discussing fallen franchises or storylines that went terribly, mind-numbingly off the rails.

I was a Halo fan to the bitter end.

I was there the day Halo: Reach came out in 2010 when the first cracks began to show with its more ‘grounded’ (read as boring) take on Halo’s gameplay caused quite a few to defect to Call of Duty: Black Ops, the best of that whole franchise and leave Halo behind now that it appeared to be wrapping up.

I was there in 2012 when 343 Industries assassinated the character of the Master Chief and produced the worst multiplayer yet and the feeling that things were seriously wrong began to take hold.

I was there in 2015 when Halo 5: Guardians shamelessly chased the mobility shooter trend, spat in the face of Halo 4’s new direction and delivered a storyline so abysmal most fans left.

I was there in 2021 when Halo: Infinite baited us in with nostalgia only to deliver a shallow tribute act and reboot a trilogy that already had never caught any momentum.

I was there when Halo died.

What was I to do? I still deeply love Bungie’s original Halo trilogy and some of its spin-offs, hell, I have a beautiful Indian Ringneck parrot named Chief after the big man himself. What could replace Halo?

Metroid, that’s what and it looks better than ever.

I discovered (or should I say, rediscovered) Metroid Prime off the back of Halo’s death and a lot of personal turmoil in other areas of my life and since then I’ve binged the entire series, even going back to beat the original on NES with my own hand-drawn map. I love this series and I hope if you’re reading this and you’re a fellow Halo refugee you’ll give the lady in yellow and red a chance.