Ah yes, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond — the game fans have waited for since the Cretaceous period. Good news: the Core Metroid Prime™ Essence™ is apparently intact. Bad news: Nintendo looked at the one franchise famous for atmospheric isolation and said, “You know what this needs? A chatterbox sidekick.”
The Good (Because We Have to Pretend to Be Positive Sometimes)
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Classic Metroid Prime Gameplay
Great news: Samus still walks, scans, shoots, and pretends she’s alone. It’s everything fans wanted — as long as they don’t mind someone babbling in their ear like an overcaffeinated AI assistant. -
New Psychic Powers
Samus can now fling stuff around with psychic abilities. Cool! It’s like Nintendo saw Jedi: Survivor and said, “What if we added that… but somehow made it less edgy?” -
A Motorcycle
Samus now has a space motorbike. Because obviously, nothing says “lonely atmospheric sci-fi exploration” like revving a cosmic Harley through alien ruins. -
Flexible Controls
You can play with standard controls or the pointer mode. Brilliant — finally, you can choose the exact input method you’ll use to ignore your sidekick.
The Real Star: The Annoyance Sidekick No One Asked For
And now we get to the pièce de résistance: Myles — a companion who apparently cannot shut up.
He’s basically Navi, Fi, Rotom Dex, and Clippy thrown into a blender, set to “liquify,” then poured directly into Samus’s helmet like a smoothie of pure irritation.
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Constant Hints
Myles reportedly points out obvious objects, reminds you to save, suggests what to scan, and probably tells you when to breathe. Perfect for players who think “exploration” is too emotionally taxing. -
2000s YouTube Energy
His dialogue reportedly feels like someone fed a pile of teenager-written fan scripts into a personality generator. Exactly the vibe you want in a moody sci-fi game known for silence and dread. -
Tonal Vandalism
Metroid Prime’s trademark isolation — that eerie, empty, you-are-on-your-own feeling? Don’t worry, that’s been safely replaced with the audio equivalent of a toddler asking, “Are we there yet?” every 10 seconds. -
Possibly Unskippable
Fans are already praying this guy can be muted. Because nothing says “immersion” like desperately hunting for a settings toggle before you finish the first hallway.
Why This Is a Disaster in Slow Motion
Metroid Prime is beloved because it lets you explore lonely alien worlds at your own pace. Introducing a talkative companion is like adding a laugh track to Blade Runner.
It’s a design choice that screams:
“We don’t trust you to play our game without a babysitter.”
Sure, maybe the devs wanted to “increase accessibility.” Or maybe they thought Samus needed a quirky banter buddy to “modernize the brand.” Or maybe someone just really likes hearing their own dialogue. Who knows.
What matters is:
Everyone who loves Metroid for its silence is now internally screaming.
How Bad Could It Be?
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Best Case:
Myles shuts up after the intro, only speaks when spoken to, and can be muted entirely. In this timeline, fans breathe a sigh of relief and pretend this whole scare never happened. -
Medium Case:
He’s present throughout but toned down, like the annoying coworker you can tolerate if you put on headphones and pretend they aren’t there. -
Worst Case:
He never stops talking, explains every puzzle before you even see it, and narrates every single boss fight like a Twitch streamer on double espresso. In this scenario, Metroid Prime 4 becomes the next example of “How to Ruin a Franchise by Adding One Character.”
The Broader Picture
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Nintendo might be trying to appeal to a bigger audience. Because obviously, the one thing keeping Metroid from selling 50 million copies was the lack of a chatty mascot.
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Longtime fans are already gathering pitchforks in anticipation.
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And the game journalists? Quietly sweating, hoping the final build has an “Off” button for Myles so they don’t have to write headlines like, “We regret everything.”
Final Verdict
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond looks great — visually competent, mechanically faithful, tonally atmospheric… until Myles pipes up to remind you how to turn a handle or scan a mushroom.
It could still be fantastic.
It could also be the gaming equivalent of putting a vuvuzela in a cathedral.
Right now, we’re all just waiting to see whether Retro Studios built a Metroid masterpiece… or accidentally created Metroid Prime 4: Beyond the Point of Tolerating This Guy.
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