Metroid Prime 4

The Metroid Prime games have been one of the biggest games in recent years, and funnily enough at one point, Metroid Prime 4 was supposed to be an early release title for the original Switch. It’s finally coming out for the Switch 2 (and even the original Switch) after undergoing plenty of delays, and it looks absolutely fantastic. Samus looks quite resourceful, decked with so many powers and weapons, and it’s going to be an absolute blast. It’s scheduled to come out sometime this year.

Doom: The Dark Ages

Id Software has brought DOOM back into the limelight with its modern reimagining, and DOOM: The Dark Ages is looking like a bigger, badder, and better version of DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal in so many different ways. The combat loop has been reworked in new and clever ways, making it feel more grounded yet nimble. Add to that new tools like the shield, companion mech, and dragon – and DOOM: The Dark Ages becomes a game that you don’t want to miss at any cost. It comes out for PC, Xbox Series X/S on 13 May, 2025.

She infiltrates a Galactic Confederation Research Facility, which is under attack by the Space Pirates. The perspective and aiming system that the series is renowned for returns alongside the Morph Ball as Samus navigates through some vents. After disposing of some enemies, Sylux emerges through a destroyed door with some Metroids (or perhaps Mochtroids) in tow.

The trailer ends with a cut to a gorgeous, lush environment outdoors with a massive tree in the distance. It’s likely the new world that Samus will explore, but we’ll need more details. Stay tuned in the coming months.

Though it’s coming to Nintendo Switch, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond could also arrive on the console’s successor. The latter will be revealed by March 31st, 2025 and is rumored to launch next year.

METROID PRIME 4

Nearly two decades on from the launch of the last Metroid Prime game, the wait for a sequel continues. Metroid Prime 4 was originally announced seven years ago, all the way back in 2017, and after a couple years of radio silence, in 2019, Nintendo revealed that development on the title had been rebooted. And since then? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Metroid Prime 4 continues to be in development at Retro Studios, but five years into its rebooted development cycle, we still don’t know anything about the game other than the fact that it’s being worked on.

PRAGMATA

We don’t see new IP from Capcom very often, so it’s always exciting to see one get announced. Four years ago, we got one in the form of Pragmata, a cool looking sci-fi title that turned more than a few heads. Four years on though, things haven’t really moved forward much (or at all). We still don’t have any idea what the heck this game is, we’ve seen barely anything of it since it got announced, and a while back, it got delayed indefinitely. Whether or not this is going to be another Deep Down is the question that we can’t help but keep coming back to.

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 2

Oh boy, where do we even begin with this one. The wait for Beyond Good and Evil 2 had dragged on long enough even before it was announced, and when, impossibly enough, it was announced, things somehow only got worse. We’re approaching the seventh anniversary of Beyond Good and Evil 2’s announcement, and by now, the game has become the definition of vaporware. After countless delays, development troubles, project reboots, and a total lack of communication from Ubisoft on what the state of the project is, it’s looking unlikelier by the day that this game will ever see the light of day.

DINO CRISIS

Capcom has done an incredible job remaking Resident Evil games to this point, but the one remake that fans keep asking for that ever seems to come isn’t a Resident Evil game at all (well, one of them is. More on that in a bit). Demands for a new Dino Crisis game have been growing louder by the day, as fans continue to salivate over the prospect of a full-fledged survival horror Dino Crisis reboot that’s built on the RE Engine and takes its fair share of learnings for the Resident Evil franchise. Up to this point, chances of that happening anytime soon have looked slim- but Capcom has shown a willingness to dive into its back catalog more than a few times now, so maybe the sun will shine one day on Dino Crisis. 

ONIMUSHA

Here’s another classic Capcom franchise that has been dormant for too long. To be fair, Capcom did try to show Onimusha at least a little bit of love with a remastered release of the original game in 2019. But since then, the franchise has once again fallen off the face of the earth entirely. Its fusion of character action combat and Resident Evil-style design has endeared the series to a sizeable fanbase over the years, so hopefully, it won’t be too long before we get a long overdue new mainline Onimusha entry.

RESIDENT EVIL: CODE – VERONICA REMAKE

Let’s stick with Capcom a little longer, because of course, Resident Evil: Code – Veronica is another game fans have been to see back in the limelight for a while now. While there’s obviously been no shortage of Resident Evil remakes, as we continue to move down the list, with each new release, the demand for Code Veronica to return grows louder and louder. Thus far, Capcom hasn’t budged on its apparent strategy of sticking only with numbered entries for remakes, but hopefully, that won’t be the case for too long. After all, there’s only so many numbered entries they can remake, right?

SYSTEM SHOCK 3

Whether or not System Shock 3 will even ever get made is massively in doubt at this point. First officially announced all the way back in 2016, the long-anticipated sequel was in the works at OtherSide Entertainment, with the project being led by System Shock mastermind Warren Spector. As the years continued to go and details on the game remained scant, concern surrounding its development grew, before confirmation arrived from Spector a couple of years ago that OtherSide Entertainment hadn’t worked on System Shock 3 since 2019. At this point, even saying that the project is in limbo would be a charitable description.

THE ELDER SCROLLS 6

It’s been thirteen years since the last mainline Elder Scrolls game released, and it’s going to be several more before the next one arrives. What’s insane is that we have known in an official capacity that The Elder Scrolls 6 is a thing for as long as six years at this point. Back in 2018, Bethesda announced the fantasy RPG with essentially a logo reveal, but it was only a few months ago that the game entered full production, with the studio having been occupied with Starfield for the last several years. At this point, development is presumably going to take around 4-5 years (at best), which means we still have a long wait ahead of us.

HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG

Team Cherry, for all that’s good in this world, please tell us when Hollow Knight: Silksong is coming. The expansion-turned-sequel was officially announced five years ago, and at one point, when the game had a launch window for some time before July 2023, it looked like we were this close to the game actually coming out. That, of course, didn’t pan out, and once again, we currently have no idea when Hollow Knight: Silksong will come out. Surely it’s gotta be this year, right? Right?

MEGA MAN LEGENDS 3

Capcom’s handling of the Mega Man franchise has been all over the place, in that even though we do keep getting new collections and re-releases, actual new instalments have been few and far between for a while now. But as starved as Mega Man fans might be for a new mainline entry, Mega Man Legends fans have been starved for even longer. It’s been close to two and a half decades since the launch of the last Legends game, and at this point, Mega Man Legends 3 is nothing short of the unlikeliest of pie-in-the-sky scenarios. But hey, we can always dream, right?

GEARS 6

That there will be a Gears 6 is pretty much a guarantee, but it’s taking an unusually long time to rear its head. Gears 5 launched nearly five years ago, which means this is now the longest we’ve ever gone without a new mainline Gears of War game. Leaks have claimed that that’s going to be The Coalition’s next title, but how long it’ll be before we it releases (or we see it) is anyone’s guess right now.

BLOODBORNE REMASTER

Sony absolutely loves its remakes and remasters, but for some strange reason, that doesn’t seem to apply to Bloodborne. FromSoftware’s seminal action RPG is an absolute fan-favourite and widely regarded as one of the best PlayStation games to date, but demands for a remake or a remaster, even though they’ve grown consistently louder, have gone unheard. Hell, we haven’t even seen a 60 FPS patch for the game on PS5.

JAK AND DAXTER

In Sony’s treasure trove of dormant legacy IP, Jak and Daxter is probably the one that fans are most wistful about to this day. Naughty Dog is, of course, unlikely to ever work on a new Jak game again (hell, they’re probably not even going back to Uncharted, let alone Jak), but might we perhaps see another studio be given the responsibility of making a new instalment in the action platforming franchise? It seems incredibly unlikely right now, but there’s no denying how popular Jak and Daxter is, so maybe that will end up counting for something in the future.

BANJO-KAZOOIE

Speaking of dormant franchises that have been slumbering for far too long, Banjo-Kazooie is another one that just refuses to come back. You have to go back to 2008 for the series’ last mainline game, and the last mainline game was Nuts and Bolts, which was… not great. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has suggested a few times that Microsoft is well aware of the level of demand for Banjo-Kazooie, but with Rare having its hands full and even Toys for Bob having bought back its independence, it’s hard to see which studio is going to take on such a project, if it ever even gets greenlit.

SPLINTER CELL REMAKE

To be fair, it hasn’t been that long since Ubisoft announced that it was remaking Splinter Cell. seeing as the project was confirmed to be in the works in 2021. But of course, not only have we seen nothing of the game since then, there’s also the fact that Splinter Cell as a whole has been MIA for far too long. Its last mainline entry, Splinter Cell Blacklist, is over a decade old at this point, and in the time since then, fans of the series have had little more than cancelled VR games and Ghost Recon DLC to go on. Hopefully, it won’t be much longer before the remake sees the light of day.

And while those questions remain unanswered for now, some potential new details on the game may have emerged nonetheless. XboxEra co-founder Nick Baker recently spoke about Metroid Prime 4 on the XboxEra Podcast, and offered some brief new details, coming from someone he knows who’s supposedly “gotten eyes” on the game.

In addition to the game looking “visually unbelieveable”, said source also claims that Metroid Prime 4 will also feature “big, massive” areas. Baker says that though he doesn’t believe the game is going to be open world, it will have significantly larger areas than previous titles in the series. According to Baker, the person seeing the game in action apparently said that the size of the environments reminded them of Halo Infinite’s “big and open” environments- though Halo Infinite really was open world, of course.

Long-suffering Metroid fans have, of course, had plenty to keep themselves occupied on the Switch in the last couple of years, first with Metroid Dread in 2021, followed by Metroid Prime Remastered earlier this year. Leaks have claimed that Metroid Prime 2 Remastered is also in the works, though of course, you never really know for sure with Nintendo outside of official announcements.

A moderator on the GamingLeaksAndRumors subreddit recently said in a thread that they received a DM from leaker Fun_Way_6592 that seems to be hinting at an upcoming Metroid Prime-related announcement. “Do you think everyone is primed and ready?” their message read.

Interestingly, the leaker has something of a track record of accurate Nintendo-related leaks, including for titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, WarioWare: Get it Together!, and Splatoon 3. What exactly the leaker is referring to, however, and how long it will be before this purported announcement is made- well, that remains to be seen.

Of course, Metroid Prime 4 has been in development for quite a long time, but since its development was rebooted and handed over to Retro Studios four years ago, the game has all but disappeared off the face of the planet.

Meanwhile, reports have also persistently claimed that a large-scale remaster of the original Metroid Prime is also in the works, though previous leaks claimed that would be out in Holiday 2022, which didn’t end up happening- which makes it hard to be too sure about any leaks along those same lines.

Either way, we’ll be keeping an eye out for more details in the coming days and weeks, so stay tuned for further updates.

In a new tweet, Retro Studios revealed that it was looking for a Tools Engineer and Technology Engineer to work on Metroid Prime 4. As such, the developer hiring new employees isn’t really shocking – Jon Marcella, who worked as Senior Game Designer on God of War (2018), joined in September 2020 as an Environment Designer. A number of other openings can be seen on Retro Studios’ careers page.

Metroid Prime 4 is in development for the Nintendo Switch and doesn’t have a release date, much less any official gameplay footage. The wait continues but rumors suggest that a remaster of Metroid Prime 1 could be coming to the Switch in the second half of 2022. Read more about that here.

https://twitter.com/RetroStudios/status/1486730941426900993

However, the truth is, even though we may lack concrete leaks and rumours, there have been rumblings in the last few months – those, coupled with the application of some basic common sense, can help us figure out what we may be about to see soon come E3 in early June. We already had a look at what we might be able to expect from Microsoft’s event at E3 recently. Now let’s take a look at what we hope to see from the other big platform holder bringing the hype to the big annual convention this year.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPDATES ON THIRD PARTY GAMES

The Nintendo Switch has seen an incredible amount of uptake with third parties, which has finally started to manifest in the form of some big name exclusives for the platform in the last few years. Right now, it doesn’t seem like that’s about to stop any time soon either. We already know major upcoming third party games are scheduled for the system, such as Shin Megami Tensei V, Monster Hunter Stories 2, and Triangle Strategy; there’s every possibility we get more information on each of those at E3 as well, including, presumably, a release date (or at least month) for Shin Megami Tensei V, which Nintendo and Atlus promised last year would get a full simultaneous release this year.

That apart, E3 2021 would also be the right time for Capcom to announce Resident Evil Outrage, the new Resident Evil title that Capcom has developed for the Switch as a lead platform, and which Nintendo apparently has marketing rights for. It’s unclear whether or not the game is a Switch timed exclusive – we know that others versions of the game exist, but we’re not entirely clear on whether or not they’ll launch alongside the Switch version. Regardless of the status of those other versions, the Switch version is, by all accounts, due out early next year, and due to be announced very soon now that Village is released, and Capcom is no longer concerned with focusing marketing on it. Now would be the time for us to see it, and it would be a pretty impressive announcement, too.

NEW FIRST PARTY GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS

Nintendo’s first party teams have been very quiet for a while; we know they’ve been working on a lot of upcoming games for the back half of this year, a lot of which got pushed back because of COVID-19, but after such a long period of silence from the company, it may be time to lift the curtain – at least a little. For example, a new 2D Metroid game has been rumoured to be in development for a long time now – apparently it even finished development a while ago. And what reason Nintendo may have had for holding it back (if it exists) is unclear, but if the game is real, announcing it at E3 for a release date for later this year will win Nintendo a lot of goodwill. Metroid is a franchise with a lot of cachet with enthusiast fans of the medium, and the IP has been dormant for a good while – unveiling a new 2D game will probably help placate fans who are getting antsy owing to the prolonged development cycle of Metroid Prime 4, as well as those are perplexed at the continual absence of Metroid Prime Trilogy from the platform.

We might get to see the next Monolith Soft title as well. Whatever that game is, even if it’s a new concept entirely, is likely to be branded Xenoblade, given that we have been told by Monolith Soft themselves that Nintendo is hoping to build that brand as a core pillar; that said, it’s not entirely necessary we see that game this year at E3. While Monolith’s last full fledged release was almost four years ago, since then they have released two expansion-sized games, one remaster, and continue to assist on the development of other Nintendo titles as well.

Finally, we have heard that Nintendo apparently went ahead and acquired the full stake to the Astral Chain IP. The original game, which launched in 2019, was fairly well received, and went on to sell over a million copies. It was also envisioned as the first game in a trilogy, so there is every possibility that more games are planned – and if they are, maybe we can see something this E3 from that? This one is a bit of a long shot, unlike the other possibilities raised so far, but since Nintendo was actively pursuing stakes in the IP as recently as a few months ago, who knows?

DONKEY KONG

One big rumoured first party game announcement from Nintendo is Donkey Kong. A brand new Donkey Kong platform developed not by Retro, or any other outsourced partner, but Nintendo EPD themselves. EPD is, of course, the master of platforming games, and seeing them tackle Nintendo’s resident primate for the first time ever is an exciting proposition-particularly since the same team that got us Super Mario Odyssey is supposed to be working on Donkey Kong as well.

What’s even more exciting is that at least one of these rumours pegs this new game as being a 3D platformer. We haven’t had a 3D Donkey Kong game in over 20 years, so you can imagine why that prospect is so mouth watering to so many fans of platforms and Donkey Kong alike. The rumours peg this game as releasing later this year, so Nintendo can’t really announce it any later than at E3 – which means we may be about to see the big gorillas triumphant homecoming in very short order.

UPDATES ON PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED AND RELEASED GAMES

While Nintendo hasn’t made a lot of major announcements for first party games in a while, there still are a few that have been announced ahead of E3 that we will probably see at E3 this year. Splatoon 3 is due to launch next year, and we can probably expect to see it get at least a bit of a blowout at Nintendo’s event. Mario Golf and Skyward Sword HD are both due to launch just a bit after E3, which means we are almost certainly getting to see more of those during Nintendo’s show as well. And while Pokemon typically holds its own event separately from Nintendo, upcoming Pokemon games still do get featured in Nintendo’s E3 events – even if only as passing mentions. Which means we can probably expect to see at the very least Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, if not Pokemon Legends: Arceus as well, come Nintendo’s E3 show.

Beyond that, we will probably also get some announcements of updates for existing games. A new update for Animal Crossing New Horizon being detailed at the show is probably a given, and we will almost certainly see the announcement of the next character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well (though who knows who that will be at this point). The last few E3 character announcements for Smash have really brought the hype, though – Ridley in 2018, and Hero and Banjo Kazooie in 2019. So whoever it is who ends up getting announced this year will probably be a pretty big deal as well.

UPDATED GLIMPSES AT METROID PRIME 4 AND BAYONETTA 3?

This one is honestly more pie in the sky than anything. We know both games are in development, but neither are presumably due for release any time soon. Metroid Prime 4 restarted development in 2019, and while that’s been enough time for Retro Studios to show off something, it’s also important to remember that most of the time since has been spent in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and so development may simply not be as far along as we may expect or want or like. Hopefully, they’re able to show us a short glimpse at the game, but CG trailers are typically not Nintendo’s style, so hopefully the game is in a state where some gameplay footage can be shown off – even if Nintendo is not willing to commit to a release, well, year, for now.

Bayonetta 3 is also in a similar situation. While we don’t have as many specific insights into its development, we do have reason to suspect it’s been rougher than expected, and with COVID disrupting that as well, it’s not as much of a given that we’ll get to see it as it may have been in other circumstances. That said, hopefully Platinum do have something to show us for it – even a short trailer will probably go a long way towards placating fan concerns.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD 2

This one is an absolute, total shoe in. The new Zelda game will be shown off at Nintendo’s E3 event, and presumably, it will be given a final name and a release window as well. It’s unclear when that release window might be – while originally I would have insisted on it releasing as Nintendo’s Holiday game this year, and to align with Zelda‘s 35th anniversary, Nintendo has shown no sign of actually acknowledging that anniversary, and, well, we have rumblings (as well as basic common sense) suggesting that COVID may have delayed its development, and that it may be likelier to launch next year – presumably early next year – than this one.

Regardless of when it’s releasing, though, we do expect to get a good look at the game. We’ll presumably get the setup for its story, see what the major hook for this game is, see how the gameplay and mechanics have evolved since Breath of the Wild, and see how the world map has changed as well. It’s likely to be among the most exciting things shown off at E3 this year – I just hope that it’s also, against all odds, confirmed for a release this year too.

WHAT WON’T BE THERE

While it’s not necessarily within the scope of this discussion, it’s probably not a bad idea to step back from the hype and calibrate expectations to rule out things that will almost certainly not be at E3 this year. The most obvious one – Hollow Knight Silksong. The follow up to Team Cherry’s seminal metroidvania game is launching exclusively on PC and Switch, and while it, too, has been long in the coming, Team Cherry has explicitly confirmed the game will not be shown off at E3 this year. So… that sucks, but strike it off the list.

The rumours that continue to circulate about a new Mario Kart game are also almost certainly just those, rumours, and a new Mario Kart game is extremely unlikely to be launched on the Switch, given how Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continues to break every sales record in the book more than four years from its release. While, obviously, one day a new Mario Kart game will exist, it will probably be held back for the Switch successor – not the Switch Pro, the Switch 2, proper, presumably in hopes of recreating the kind of early push the Switch got from Mario Kart.

Speaking of which – the Switch Pro. I’m reasonably confident this thing exists. I’m sure it’s launching this year too, in fact. But that said, do not expect it to be at E3 this year. There are several reasons for this – the most important one is that Nintendo does not, and has never, announced a system revision at E3 (or, well, not since the days of the Gameboy Advance, more than 20 years ago). Nintendo typically tends to announce these revisions a few weeks out from release at the most – the Switch Lite, as one example, was announced just a little over two months from release, and conspicuously and decidedly not at E3. Even if the Switch Pro is real, and due to launch this year, it will probably get announced independently a bit down the line – I’d expect late June, early July at the earliest, and late August at the latest.

Which means even when E3 is done, Nintendo fans will have a lot to look forward to this year.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Vampire the Masquerade – Bloodlines 2

Set in the macabre World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 starts after a Mass Embrace aka vampires openly attacking and converting humans in full public view. With the masquerade broken, you play as a new Thinblood vampire who must choose a side. Pick a discipline, whether it’s levitating objects or mist transformation, then ally with a vampire clan for even more perks. From there, you can explore the world and take on side quests while feeding on the populace. Several delays later, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is set to release this year for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC.

Retro Studios took over the Metroid Prime 4 project nearly two years ago now, at which point development on the game was rebooted from scratch. Concrete updates from Nintendo or Retro have been understandably sparse since then, but things such as job listings have kept fans in the loop about the game’s development to some extent.

We have another one of those here. Retro Studios recently took to Twitter to generate some interest in filling out a position on the Metroid Prime 4 development team- specifically, that of Boss/AI Designer, which will do pretty much exactly what the position’s name implies. Metroid Prime as a series (Metroid as a whole, in fact) has always prided itself on strong boss battles, so this should be a pretty important position to fill out.

Retro Studios have been hiring talent from a number of top studios over the last couple of years, and recently even moved into a new HQ to facilitate an expansion while they continue to work on the upcoming Switch title. Read more about that through here.

https://twitter.com/RetroStudios/status/1338559406284410883