Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will revolve around time travel, which will permeate both its story and gameplay, as suggested by the game’s Japanese retail packaging that was recently spotted in the wild. This suggests that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will deliver on a ten-year-old promise from its producer, Kensuke Tanabe.
The fourth numbered Metroid Prime game was originally made by Bandai Namco, with Kensuke Tanabe returning as producer, a role he held on all previous entries. Nintendo, reportedly dissatisfied with progress, eventually rebooted the project under Retro Studios, with Tanabe retaining his position. Long before Metroid Prime 4 restarted development, Tanabe gave an interview where he mentioned he’d like the game to feature a time travel mechanic. “Instead of broadening it to more planets, I would have one and would focus on the timeline, and being able to change that,” he told Eurogamer in 2015.
Metroid Prime 4 Box Points to Samus Crossing Space and Time
That decade-old promise is seemingly on course to being fulfilled, as indicated by some photos of the game’s Japanese box that emerged online in mid-September 2025. According to a fan translation of the packaging, the upcoming title will see Samus “transported across space and time” to the planet Viewros, after which she’ll have to use her newfound abilities to carve a path back. The mysterious jungle planet of Viewros was already mentioned in some previous Metroid Prime 4: Beyond promotional materials, but the time-traveling component of the game’s story was not.
Although Tanabe flat-out said he wanted to make Metroid Prime 4 a time-traveling story, a decade is a long time, more than long enough for things to change—doubly so given that the game switched developers and essentially returned to square one during this period. However, this latest look at its box appears to suggest that the new Metroid Prime game will be sticking to its original concept.
Sylux Is Returning In Metroid Prime 4
Time travel isn’t the only aspect of Tanabe’s first draft for the game that appears to have endured the test of time. In the same 2015 interview that saw him talk about this mechanic, the industry veteran pointed to Sylux as a notable loose thread after Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Prior trailers for Beyond have confirmed that the powerful bounty hunter will be returning in the upcoming title.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has recently locked down a December 4 release date. The game will be available for both the Switch and Switch 2, with the latter benefitting from some performance benefits on account of having significantly stronger hardware. Content-wise, both versions of the new Metroid game will be identical.