What you need to know before Prime 4: Beyond

ahsan65@gmail.comNovember 28, 2025

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What you need to know before Prime 4: Beyond

As you surely know, Metroid Prime 4 finally arrives next week on Nintendo Switch 2. Given that 18 years have passed since the last Metroid Prime game, you would be indulgent if you wanted a little refresher.

Lucky for you, dear reader, that’s exactly why I’m here. We will return to the history of the last three Metroid Prime games to get you up to speed. I’ll even dig First Metroid Fighters And Metroid Prime: Federation Forcebecause I love you.

Metroid Prime Pinball is basically just a retelling of the first Metroid Primebefore anyone tries to ask me why I didn’t mention the 2005 Nintendo DS spin-off.

Where do the Metroid Prime games fit in the timeline?

Everything is not so simple

Fortunately, the Metroid the timeline is much simpler than The Legend of Zelda chronology. But that’s probably because there were half as many matches.

If you are interested in Metroid Prime 4the good news is you don’t have to catch up all your Metroid history. In fact, the whole Prime the series takes place between the original Metroid And Metroid 2: The Return of Samus, so there are a lot of Metroid traditions you don’t really need to know.

Here are the basics from the first Metroid game anyway: Samus Aran is an intergalactic bounty hunter who traveled to the planet Zebes to eliminate the Space Pirates. The Space Pirates, evil crabs that they are, attempted to harness the power of the Metroid, a life-sapping alien creature.

Their plan fails when Samus kills their commanders. Ridley and Kraid, before destroying the leader of the Space Pirates Mother braineliminating every last Metroid in the Space Pirate facility, then blowing the whole thing up for good measure. Things tend to explode around Samus.

Metroid Prime Events

It’s not a phazon mom, it’s who I am

years 2002 Metroid Prime starts shortly after the events of the original Metroid. Samus Aran investigates a distress signal sent by the space frigate Orpheon. She quickly discovers that the Space Pirates have hijacked the station to experiment with a strange substance they call Phazon.

Upon further investigation, Samus discovers Ridley is alive and has been cybernetically enhanced. The Orpheon eventually goes out of orbit and crashes into the planet. Tallon IVleaving Samus stripped of most of her abilities (this happens to her often).

As Samus explores the different biomes of Tallon IV, she discovers the truth behind Phazon. The deadly miasma began infecting the planet when it arrived several years ago, inside a massive meteor. The worst of the phazon was contained at the impact site by the inhabitants of Tallon IV, a peaceful race of birds called Chozo (the same race that took Samus in and raised/trained her as a child).

Between the meteor and the Phazon, the Chozo were finally wiped out. However, they were able to leave a message to Samus: access the impact crater and defeat the monster at the heart of the planet.

Samus finally eliminates Ridley (again) and meets the Metroid Prime deep underground. The Metroid Prime is a Metroid that spent years feeding on the Phazon in the Impact Crater and evolved into a horrible monster. Samus manages to destroy it and escape before everything explodes (again). However, a post-credits scene shows the Metroid Prime survivedand was remodeled into a twisted clone of Samus.

The events of Metroid Prime: Hunters

Goree? I barely know her

First Metroid Fighters isn’t particularly important to the overall story since it’s primarily a multiplayer game, but it’s worth mentioning for one very important reason which we’ll get into. Samus was drawn into a race with six other bounty hunters in search of a “ultimate power” hidden in the alimbic cluster.

Samus faces each of her rival hunters: Weavel, Trace, Sylux, Spire, Kanden and Noxus. However, the only name you should remember from this group is Sylux. This mysterious hunter will play an important role in Metroid Prime 4: Beyondand his hatred towards Samus and the Galactic Federation is established in this game.

Samus and the other hunters are forced to briefly work together when it becomes clear that the “ultimate power” is actually a horrible monster called Blood which was sealed. Who could have seen this coming? The galaxy is saved and the hunters go their separate ways.

The events of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Samus, that’s always been the case

After the Galactic Federation lost contact with the troops sent to explore the planet EtherSamus is called in to check, and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes begin. It quickly becomes obvious that The Aether is absolutely soaked in Phazon, with the dead Federation troops reanimating to attack Samus. As if that wasn’t enough, she encounters the now renamed Metroid Prime again. Dark Samus.

Samus follows her doppelganger through a portal to a dark mirror version of Aether called Dark Aetherultimately, the learning of the Aether was split into two parallel dimensions when it was hit by a meteor containing Phazon.

Obviously, this is no problem for Samus, who is able to replenish Aether and kick Dark Samus’s ass. She’s our daughter.

The events of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Mother brain, can I

The grand finale of the main trilogy gets off to an explosive start. It turns out that Dark Samus is not dead (obviously) and has, in fact, succeeded in use Phazon to corrupt the Space Pirates and bend them to his will.

This new force takes Samus by surprise early in the game and she is eliminated in an explosive battle. She wakes up from the coma about a month later and discovers that things didn’t really go well in her absence.

Dark Samus plans to invade the cosmos with Phazon by hitting as many planets as possible with the same type of meteors that destroyed Tallon IV and Aether. As if that wasn’t enough, Samus herself has been infected by Phazon and must wear a special suit to control it, otherwise she risks being… corrupt.

Samus does what she does best, recovering her abilities via numerous flashbacks, before cutting the Phazon at the source: planet Phaaze. It is here that she has her final confrontation with Dark Samus, and destroyed the entire planet of Phaazecausing all Phazon in the galaxy to become completely harmless goops. Someone still has to mop it up, no doubt, but that’s not Samus’s to worry about. She takes off in search of another bounty to hunt, a mysterious spaceship on her trail. it has since been confirmed to belong to Sylux.

The events of Metroid Prime: Federation Force

Yes, it’s hot, I’m sorry

The 3DS‘ Metroid Prime: Federation Force is about as welcome among fans as a fart in an elevator, but unfortunately it has some important plot points, so we have to deal with it.

Okay, when I say “a few” important plot points, I mean one. Samus is barely in this game, leaving you to play as Federation troops. Our hero only really appears in the story when it is kidnapped by space pirates at the end (as if) and brainwashed to become the final boss of the game.

Incredibly, we can never forget Federation Strength because of the fact its final scene sets up the entire story of Metroid Prime 4. The very last cutscene shows Sylux stealing a Metroid eggusing some sort of weapon that makes it grow at an alarming rate. Indeed, trailers for First 4 showed Sylux supported by his own army of Metroids. This is bound to cause Samus a headache.

Will Sylux be the real big bad of First 4Or is someone else pulling the strings? Is Dark Samus really gone? Is Phazon no longer a threat? We will know for sure when Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will launch next week, December 4.