After 18 years, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a surprisingly magical return to Nintendo's legendary series, and I'm all in on psychic abilities and the power of friendship

In a vale surrounded by alien butterflies, there is a woman everyone knows by her first name: Samus. What's under her robotic Power Suit – ponytail sleeker than a sports car, blue eyes overfamiliar with blue sadness – doesn't matter as much as the unstoppable force she represents with it on. And in the long anticipated Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, this symbol of intergalactic justice seems more potent than ever.

Though, it's not in the way the nearly 40-year-old Metroid franchise usually presents Samus. Based on the 80 minutes of Metroid Prime 4 I got to play on the Nintendo Switch 2 at a recent demo session in Manhattan, ahead of the game's December 4 launch, I think the first-person action game is much less austere than its predecessors. It might now be better to think of the secret heroine Samus Aran as Alice in Wonderland.

Through the looking glass

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond loosely continues the story from the special ending in 2007's Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, in that the enigmatic hunter Sylux is still hatefully pursuing Samus through the stars. He will also soon be an amiibo.

But the demo I try focuses instead on Samus' wandering through the lush Fury Green forest, solving environmental puzzles to retrieve emblematic power ups – like the decisive Missile Launcher – that she's lost among the mushrooms.

So, helped by the Switch 2's liquid performance and Pro Controller, I glide around twinkling specks of dust and leaves to dispatch monsters and head deeper into the undergrowth. I find that the Fury Green map is an exciting problem to solve, with paths hidden by golden resin and twisted roots. Even when I'm being pricked by porcupine-y enemies, which open like flowers to spit out barbs, I have no choice but to recognize the verdant beauty around me. I start thinking of it as the Vale of Tears in American McGee's Alice, except in space.

There are worse places to wake up without your Morph Ball. Samus is at least being guided by the sweet spirits of the Lamorn, a race of ancient aliens new to Metroid Prime. Samus is their chosen one, and so they instill psychic powers in her – a pink crystal sits like a third eye in her helmet, imbuing some of her arsenal with, basically, magic.

I eventually access the Psychic Visor, which, along with Samus' always informative Scan Visor, acts as a control panel for later Psychic weapons I retrieve. I find the Psychic Glove, which lets me remotely manipulate Psychic Motes that slot into doors like keys, with only a twist of my glowing hand. Later, I'm even more impressed by the Control Beam, which I can charge to release a blast of syrupy, maneuverable light. Since Metroid Prime 4's standard lock-on is so inconsistent, requiring you to click on it constantly if you want to use it, I'm glad for this.

With the Visor, I can easily steer the Beam's pink shine to do things like simultaneously explode multiple weak points in the level boss Carvex, a sticky plant creature that tries to impale me with organic spikes. It offers an easy win once I gain access to its fragile (infected?) stomach.

Equal and opposite reaction

There is no beauty without unsightly carnage. At one point, I think I'm about to cry for a bug, a bioluminescent beetle that's been helping me find my way around the thorny Spikeroot Cave. An unseen predator has nabbed the beetle's bloated body from the grass and left it to bleed out on its back – but I have hardly any time to mourn it before I meet what might be the most shocking reveal of any Metroid game: Samus's... new boyfriend?

He appears after the bug does, muttering to himself in a clearing. The helmet of his Power Suit is off, revealing thin cheeks and a pair of glasses – through which he somehow immediately identifies me as Samus, bounty hunter extraordinaire. I guess characters in the Metroid Prime universe no longer think I'm as improbable as Santa Claus, the way they used to.

His name is Myles MacKenzie, and he's a marooned computer expert from the UTO Research Center. Once I rescue him from the wreckage of his spaceship and protect him from a troupe of malformed monkeys – MacKenzie immediately freaks out and drops his pistol, so he's no help – I let him follow me around and repair obsolete technology the Lamorn left behind.

He quips to Samus about how nerdy he is, and needing to manage his health bar during combat tells me he's right. At times, I'm annoyed by a companion who only slows me down in Fury Green – I find myself often needing to turn around and save his useless ass during battle, when all I want to do is forge ahead. But I want to believe that my stoic Samus is somehow into it.

Queen of Hearts

It is at least less lonely, having MacKenzie trail me like a Bloodhound. It's not what Samus is used to. Her life is defined by dark, ruin, a tense relationship to her own self – her soul is split in two, into half a savior and half a villain. I didn't think there was room for other people.

But it's easy to be swayed by the devotion so plainly on MacKenzie's nervous face. I can imagine their relationship becoming more charming past Fury Green. Especially if MacKenzie is true to his word and manages to fix up the abandoned Metroid Prime: Federation Force-style mech we find. He calls it Betsy.

Things are strange like this through the rabbit hole. Shining with psychic intuition, flanked by a weird boy, Samus seems like she's about to be truly out of her depth for the first time in decades. The Metroid Prime 4: Beyond demo I played, then, suggests an unexpected direction for the Metroid Prime series – possibly more whimsy than isolation. It's nothing like what I expected. But with the demanding life Samus has lived, I'm glad for all the butterflies she can get.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is set to release for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on December 4, 2025. While we're reminiscing, let's revisit the best Metroid games of all time.