What console did Metroid Prime 4 run on during the Nintendo Direct?

Seeing Metroid Prime 4 Beyond again was one of the big surprises of this week’s Nintendo Direct. We had to wait 7 years for its return, and talking about its tumultuous development is unnecessary for now, as it managed to surprise fans of the franchise. If anything, the title looks pretty good, which has users debating what console it’s running on. Is this a game that will run on Nintendo Switch, or is it a first look at the hybrid console’s successor?

Metroid Prime 4 runs on… Nintendo Switch

Despite what we saw yesterday of great detail in Samus’ cannon, reflections and explosions, the experts have spoken. And there are no better experts on the subject than the folks at Digital Foundry (via IGN). In a detailed article, Richard Leadbetter, Digital Foundry’s technology editor, clarifies that he does not consider what we saw to be running on the Nintendo Switch 2.

“It’s looking great and there are a couple of nice effects in there we took a closer look at, but ultimately, all the evidence points to this game running on the original Switch,” mentions Leadbetter. “The internal rendering resolution counts out at 900p, which is the same as Metroid Prime Remastered. And as good as it is, there are some aliasing issues and even some very minor frame-rate drops. Everything about the visual make-up is consistent with a really well-made Switch game, where Retro has an excellent track record.”

While Leadbetter acknowledges the great job Retro Studios has done in focusing on the platform to get the most out of it, he also mentions another possibility, as it wouldn’t be the first time Nintendo has released a trailer that runs slightly better than the final version. “Nintendo has released some trailer assets that looked better than the final release games. There’s the now legendary ‘Too Big For Switch’ trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and a trailer for Bayonetta 3 that ran consistently at 60fps where the final game certainly does not. However, in this case, with this developer and a game in gestation for this long, the instinct is to say that this is Switch 1 and representative of the actual console experience. If it were on Switch 2, we’d expect anti-aliasing via DLSS – there is none at all in this trailer – and a higher output resolution, for starters.”

Nintendo Switch successor on the way

Despite everything, we know from Nintendo that the company will announce the successor to the Nintendo Switch in the coming months, before the end of fiscal year 2024 in March 2025. Metroid Prime 4 Beyond release window points to 2025 and perhaps this has generated the idea that the title will come to this console, although of course it could also be an inter-generational title, as was the case with the versions of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild.