Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a shooting and traversal game where you play a future soldier who must escape from a hostile alien world. Play is the familiar Metroid mix of shooting, exploring to find new abilities, and using them to reach new areas, but here it is enhanced with telekinetic powers and a bike to race across open areas. It stands out not just for the Metroid name, but also for its novel traversal challenge and the ability to use the Switch 2 Joy-Con as a mouse for better aiming.
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You play series protagonist Samus Aran after she's stranded on the strange alien jungle world of Viewros, and try to escape and find out what her strange new telekinetic powers mean. Play involves exploring ancient ruins and strange landscapes in search of answers, and fighting enemies with your gun.
As you progress, you unlock new abilities that enable you to access new areas, such as turning into a ball and rolling through pipes. You backtrack to past locations in search of new ways to go, and gradually travel across the planet. You also use your bike, a first for the series, to zoom between faraway locations across open sands, and make use of your telekinetic powers to manipulate the environment and reveal hidden paths.
The result is a game that expands on the series' shooting and exploration with new ways to get around and fight enemies. Each new area traversed and secret discovered is immensely rewarding and makes for a highly engaging game.
