Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review: an excellent modernization, but not a total reinvention

It’s been 18 years since the last Metroid Prime game, but I felt right at home in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Almost too at home. Whether fighting my way through a volcano, exploring a research base in a frozen tundra or getting lost in a vast desert, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d done this before. As the fourth game in a series, that’s not a huge surprise, but it was my main disappointment in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Think about the leap Nintendo took going from 2011’s The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and 2017’s Breath of the Wild. They were both recognizably Zelda games, but Nintendo redefined what that means between those two games.

No such reinvention has happened with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great time — it executes ...