Metroid Prime 4: Beyond arrives as a significant cross-generation release, bringing Retro Studios’ latest entry to both the Nintendo Switch and the newer Nintendo Switch 2. The game marks the return of Samus Aran, who finds herself on the planet Viewros, assisting the Lamorn civilization while facing off against her long-standing rival, Sylux.
The most direct technical contrast between the systems comes from their performance modes. On the original Switch, Metroid Prime 4 operates strictly at 60 fps. The Switch 2, in comparison, provides both a 60 fps quality mode and a 120 fps performance mode, giving players added flexibility depending on how they want the game to feel. The largest distinctions appear in rendering resolution, certain texture and shadow resolutions, and occasional variations in LOD. Outside of those points, the versions remain quite close, likely because the game was already far along in development for the first Switch before work began on the Switch 2 edition.
Resolution scaling contributes further to the differences. The quality mode on Switch 2 upgrades the image from 1440p to 4K, while the performance mode lowers it to 1080p with reduced texture resolution. Meanwhile, the original Switch typically runs at 900p in docked mode and averages around 540p in handheld mode, which reflects the platform’s established limits. Performance stability is described as very strong across all modes and both devices. Load times also see a substantial improvement, running roughly five times faster on the Switch 2.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will be released on December 4, 2025, for the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.
