It's been 11 years since Retro Studios's last new video game, and even longer - nearly two decades - since their last Metroid Prime game launched on the Wii. At the same time, we've waited nearly seven years since Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was announced, with its seemingly troubled development reigns eventually being handed to Retro Studios in 2019.

That's a worrying combination of factors ahead of a fan-favourite series' long-awaited sequel. And pre-launch, hands-on previews didn't assuage our fears on either a gameplay or technical level.

Thankfully, we are now well into the game's campaign for the sake of a technical review that also confirms something crucial: Metroid Prime 4 isn't just a pretty and technically sound Switch 2 game but also an engaging, series-worthy adventure.

Retro Studios has built incredible atmosphere, puzzle-solving and environmental diversity. Based on the length of the development cycle, we must assume it's designed primarily around the limits of Switch 1 (we have yet to see that version of the game) so the strategy for Switch 2 is seemingly to supercharge a good-looking game to run and feel even better.

After an initial sequence where Samus defends an alien assault on a human research station, players are teleported by a mysterious artefact to another world - an expansive, sandy wasteland known as Sol Valley. Here, players begin the true adventure: ride a motorcycle across this strange, new planet, then disembark to explore on foot - or, of course, morph ball - and find five keys hidden in five distant zones.

This desert region evokes the sprawling likes of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Shadow of the Colossus, insofar as the region creates a sense of impressive scale but also pales in comparison to the prime destinations. These five strongholds are the game's beating heart, and each feels distinct from the other while not immediately borrowing from the most clichéd adventure-game archetypes.

For example, the lush, foliage-lined Fury Green region adds a crucial twist of its core being made of alien architecture, thus delivering an evocative visual contrast between organic and eerie materials. Volt Forge's rain-soaked series of ornate spires connect via massive skybridges, and the resulting aesthetic looks like an HR Giger-inspired take on a Forerunner compound in Halo. And the journey of thawing out the Ice Belt medical facility combines a chilly, bone-white ruin with the eventual supercharged electricity and effects that melt the frost and clear Samus's path.

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Look closely for Samus's facial reflection on her in-visor display.

Unsurprisingly, all of this shines due more to clever artistic direction than technical prowess. MP4 appears to run on an enhanced version of the Metroid Prime Remastered engine, and its most impressive feats are often its more subtle. Screen-space god rays slice the dusty air. Samus's omnipresent, reflective visor display continues the series' tradition of emphasising cool effects like rain droplets, breath vapor and Samus's own reflection, though all upgraded to modern-engine standards.

And the sensation of riding the new Vi-O-La motorcycle is enhanced by the vehicle responding to terrain geometry and tessellation, its suspension bumping up and down, along with treadmarks being rendered from both its front and rear tyres.

Though specular highlights are welcome, we're not looking at the material-based lighting that impressed so much in last month's Switch 2-exclusive Kirby Air Riders. Fixed, baked lighting and texture resolution limits remind that this game is indeed built to run on original Switch hardware, but Retro Studios appear to lean into this restriction, building out the series' most ornate, diverse, and impressive environs yet.

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This rare moment of a frame-rate dip is truly a rare blemish. Otherwise, expect a nearly perfect 60fps refresh rate while playing MP4 in "4K" mode.

These limits also suit the Switch 2 by enabling the console's first true implementation of a 120Hz mode in a fully 3D game. What's more, in either the game's 60fps or 120fps modes, frame-rates are almost 100 percent locked, with only a few imperceptible frame-time spikes in the massive Sol Valley region. For more on this impressive 120Hz mode, check out our companion coverage: Metroid Prime 4 is Switch 2's first true 120Hz 3D showcase.

Our pixel counting suggests the "4K" mode actually delivers a 1440p pixel count. We were tripped up at first due to the details of Samus's visor rendering at a full 2160p, while 3D content seen through that visor runs at the lower resolution. As it turns out, this omnipresent visual detail has an interesting impact. Between those sharp pixels and the general field of view's tasteful SMAA technique, the resulting imagery looks and runs crisply enough to resemble 4K in action.

Still, due to the input responsiveness of the 120Hz mode, we recommend its tradeoff of pixels for faster button-press response times. What's more, should you elect to use the Joy-Con 2's optional "mouse" mode, it too greatly benefits from that faster refresh rate, a fact that makes the awkward-fitting mouse control certainly worth experimenting with - or even worth 3D-printing a mouse mode hand grip to make that one easier on adult hands.

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You'll have to trust that this kind of brightness-filled morph-ball sequence looks all the more stunning with HDR enabled.

In either resolution in docked mode, players with compatible TVs will benefit from an incredible High Dynamic Range (HDR) implementation. We don't just mean that it's great compared to Switch 2 games. This is up there with some of the best HDR we've ever seen on modern game consoles. Bursts of luminance information scale properly to HDR calibration - especially if your TV supports the "HGiG" toggle - and these impressively emphasise effects like laser blasts, environmental highlights and even Samus's new "psychic" versions of existing abilities.

For similar reasons, we're not as fond of MP4 in portable mode. Switch 2's built-in screen cannot reach "true" HDR luminance levels, and its known issues with pixel lag and ghosting feel particularly detrimental to this game's sharply rendered aesthetics. Dock MP4 if you can.

However you play this game, we can report a strong puzzle-adventure foundation fuelled by complex, multi-tiered architecture and a pleasant mix of familiar and new collectables - including a new guided-missile weapon that, funnily enough, resembles the mechanical beetle from Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

The presentation includes a somewhat chatty cast of characters, though our initial concerns about introductory, nagging ally Mackenzie were assuaged when he dropped out early, and the game's dialogue is far less intrusive than the stop-and-chat sequences in Metroid Prime 3. And while the new score includes fewer memorable leitmotifs than other games in the series, particularly Metroid Prime 1, it delivers a compelling mix of ambient noise, twinkling-high-frequency synthesisers and minor-key swells of weirdness.

MP4, like other great Metroid games, rewards players for the act of discovery, only this time across the series' most sweeping and expansive environments yet. Thus, we recommend it as a contender for the second-best game in the series yet. Sadly, Switch 1 review code was unavailable in the pre-release period, so our impressions of MP4's frame-rates, resolutions and possible detail compromises on Switch 1 will have to wait until the game officially launches later this week.