sloppyjoe_gamer
Gold Member
Its already out OP, you missed it and were already on to Metroid Prime 5
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond could be released on 25. September 2025
- Thread starter VGA-Games
- Start date
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Well they've publicly made quite clear again and again it is scheduled for 2025 so this would be quite the story.
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TheAtomicPile
Member
Right and it would actually be the first time Nintendo has ever delayed a game. Absolutely huge.
thatJohann
Member
Prob releasing for Xmas or Q1 2026
Lucifers Beard
Member
There's no way Nintendo are going to release what is their biggest game since probably Tears of the Kingdom without having a good few months of marketing build up.
blacktout
Member
It has already been rated in several regions, so it must be content complete. That doesn't make a delay impossible, but it does make it a lot less likely, especially since Nintendo almost certainly wants it out before the holidays. The only reason it would be delayed is if it wasn't finished, and they're not going to send it out to ratings boards before it's essentially done.
Nintendo has already released two games that are "bigger" than Metroid Prime this year.
Hyet
Member
If only any metrid Game sold as much as that...
TheAtomicPile
Member
I hope you're right but I'm not convinced. They could just be trying to give it space to breathe. I think September is out since there's no time for marketing. I'd say October and November are set with Pokemon and Kirby, just leaving December.
Nintendo likes to have something decently big for early or mid Q1 lately. Look at Pokemon Legends Arceus, Bowser's Fury, Fire Emblem Engage, Mario vs Donkey Kong, and so on. All of these shipped Q1 after barren Decembers.
blacktout
Member
I agree that Nintendo mostly likes to avoid shipping games in December, and mostly reserves it for titles that are coming in hot and need extra time but that they still want out before Christmas (the two main examples being Smash Ultimate and Xenoblade Chronicles 2). However, MP4 could actually fall into this camp if it was only finished recently and is in the final stages of QA. It seems like Nintendo would probably want a more "mature" title this holiday to push the Switch 2 to an audience that might not be interested in Pokemon or Kirby Air Riders.
I also don't think October or November are out of the question, because Nintendo has doubled up on releases around the holidays before when necessary, and also aren't the sole decider of Pokemon release dates since they're only joint owners of The Pokemon Company.
As far as Q1 is concerned, Hyrule Warriors is probably a January or February release, since Nintendo has conspicuously refused to add a year to its "winter" release window.
Although I could see a world in which the reason they haven't gotten more specific with the Hyrule Warriors date is because they want to be able to swap it into the end of the year if last minute issues force a Metroid Prime 4 delay.
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Well there's no such thing as a publisher or developer who's never delayed a game, but you'd have to dig pretty deep in modern times to find a recent example of a game Nintendo's delayed into the following year after they've already publicly confirmed a date. That's a really, really short list.
And again, the fact they haven't dated it beyond 2025 yet is purely marketing-driven because they have a specific plan for the game. That's by far the most likely reason. It's highly unlikely they can't confirm a date because it's not finished. Nintendo reviews game development schedules in December/January for the coming year to see what's on track and what's not. Nintendo clinging to hope in August for a game that they're aware has already been in development way too long is not likely to be something they botch *again*.
After all, this is the company that both first announced and dated a game and released it within 2 weeks just five years ago. (Mario 35th).
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blacktout
Member
I agree with your larger point, but the list of games that Nintendo has delayed out of their announced year isn't *that* short. If you ignore Tears of the Kingdom, which has already been mentioned, and Advance Wars, which had weird extenuating circumstances, that still leaves Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Yoshi's Crafted World, all of which were announced for one year and then later pushed to the next, and those are all examples from the Switch era.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Out of every first party game over the 8 year Switch generation, I'd actually point out what you have above is in fact a pretty short list. And does Advance Wars count? I mean technically it was delayed but it was only for global geo-political circumstances because Ukraine was invaded. I mean
. So you've got…maybe 5 games… out of like…40 or 50? That's really solid. And do any of us really get the sense the game is at risk of being delayed out of 2025? When they re-confirmed it *again* during GamesCom, and it's been rated in every major region? 
.This seems pretty obvious to me to be a case of a lack of date being marketing-driven at this point. Like they've got some clever secret plan to dazzle us all. Who knows, but I'm not feeling a delay whatsoever.
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blacktout
Member
I guess you can quibble about what qualifies as a "short list," but it's definitely not unprecedented, especially when Nintendo has only given a release year without a specific window.
Listen, I think Metroid Prime 4 is coming out this year too, in part because we've seen way more of it than we had of any of the games I listed, but I don't think having a release year alone is prohibitively strong evidence that there won't be a delay.
And does Advance Wars count? I mean technically it was delayed but it was only for global geo-political circumstances because Ukraine was invaded. I mean
Yes, that's why I said you could potentially ignore it due to extenuating circumstances in my previous post.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
No, I quite agree. It's not unprecedented. I'm essentially just echoing Reggie's words that when Nintendo publicly confirms a date they have a pretty strong track record of holding to it. I think that is generally quite accurate. You provided four examples across an entire (unusually long) platform cycle. Which I think is evidence that it's more rare nowadays for it to happen with Nintendo games than at any time in their history. I think they've got their internal planning so dialed in that out of an 8 year cycle, they've got like 4 games that didn't make it when they thought. That's pretty dang impressive.
And yeah, we also agree that out of any game, Metroid Prime 4 at this point is absolutely not being delayed barring some kind of internal planning disaster that found them in late August/ early September honestly not knowing when it would be ready to ship.
Thank you for pushing back on that list of delays, I'd honestly forgotten most of them. Those were all pretty early in the cycle, too.
I greatly admire the willingness to occasionally delay major games like Animal Crossing in order to make the game as good as possible instead of hitting an artificial marketing date. I've always respected that about them, hope they never lose that.
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