Metroid Prime 4 Won't Release on Switch?

Is Metroid Prime 4 Coming To Switch?

On the “Last of the Nintendogs” Podcast with Jeff Grubb and Mike Minotti when talking about the September 2022 Direct that has yet to be confirmed, there were many things that were discussed including the heavily speculated WindWaker and Twilight Princess Switch Ports but it was their talk about Metroid Prime 4 that stuck out to me the most.

“I think they are very, very, very likely going to move Metroid Prime 4 to the next system” said Jeff Grubb, who has a impressive track record for being accurate about unreleased gaming information.

Lets take a look at the facts. Metroid Prime 4 was revealed way back at E3 2017 as just the title card stating that the game was in development, which was enough good news for Metroid fans. Development was reportedly being handled by Bandai Namco, but was never confirmed. A few years passed and then on a random January morning, Nintendo announced that development had been restarted and was now being handled by Retro Studios who created the first three Metroid Prime games with critical adoration.

The point is that it has now been well over three years with zero updates about Metroid Prime 4 and Nintendo has a history of delaying high profile games for long periods of time, even to the point of not releasing on the system it was initially announced on. The Legend of Zelda, for example, has somewhat of a reputation for doing this. Breath of the Wild was announced as a Wii U exclusive, only be delayed until a simultaneous release on the Switch as well. Same thing with Twilight Princess which was supposed to be GameCube exclusive only to be pushed until it released on Wii at the same time.

Metroid could be going down the same path by being held for the Switch successor but also releasing on the Switch at the same time. However, as much of a technical masterpiece as the original Metroid Prime was for the GameCube back in 2001, it would be hard to see Metroid Prime 4 being as big of a leap if it was a Switch title. Nintendo does have a way of working magic with their first party titles and getting the most out of hardware so anything is possible. At least its in development, something that we can’t definitively say about heavily desired franchises like F-Zero or Wave Race.