Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has been rated in another country, and with rumours of a Nintendo Direct incoming, the hopium is building.
Now that Hollow Knight: Silksong is out, we can finally go back to Metroid Prime 4 being our "where the hell is it" game of choice. It was first announced back in 2017 (three months after the original Switch launched), and then in January 2019 (a month before Silksong was announced), the game was rebooted with original series developer Retro Studios helming it. Then, in 2024, we finally got the first look at gameplay and a 2025 release date.
However, since it's September and we don't have a release date, some have feared the game may be delayed until 2026, with Nintendo's former marketing leads stating that it's "not normal" for a release date to be missing at this point. However, in the last few months, the game has been rated in Korea and by the ESRB in the US, and now, as rumours of a Nintendo Direct this week swirl, a new rating has emerged.
This was spotted by Necro Felipe at Universo Nintendo, who said (via machine translation) "The age rating for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was published today in the Official Gazette here in Brazil." The game received a 14+ with Nintendo submitting the game with the intended rating of 12+, with the rating citing violence as the reason for the rating.
Hopefully this means by the end of this week (assuming the Nintendo Direct rumours come to pass) we should know when Metroid Prime 4 releases, with September and December being the only months of 2025 where Nintendo doesn't have a first party game releasing, so I'd guess we're either getting a real surprise launch within the next few weeks, or December 4 as Nintendo doesn't typically release games past the first week of December.
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