“Obviously one that comes up all the time is Mass Effect,” said King when asked about the projects that inspired Archetype Entertainment to make Exodus. “We obviously share some DNA. The epic space opera, the mega choices that carry over from game to game. Combat, we have a lot of stuff come up. Mass Effect, Horizon is probably another one we’ve drawn some inspiration from.”

While the Mass Effect inspiration might seem like a no-brainer for those aware of the development team behind Exodus and having seen its trailers, Horizon getting a shout-out might be more interesting. Robertson explained that Guerrilla Games’ Horizon series helped the studio figure out how to make elemental damage work in combat, as well as how to force players to make decisions about the things they are fighting.

“With Horizon, it’s that elemental aspect of combat, where you’ve got to make decisions based on the construction of the things that you’re fighting, and be smart about the tools that you use against it,” he explained. “There’s some cool things that we think we’ve pulled in from that.”

Interestingly, King also gives a shout out to seminal first-person metroidvania title Metroid Prime, noting that its focus on exploration helped the studio in how it structured out the worlds that players will get to explore in Exodus. “One of the things that really resonates is just like the exploration, hopping on a spaceship, kind of being out in the middle of nowhere. I kind of like the loneliness in that game. It just makes the environments really interesting.”

Exodus is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release some time in 2026. The release window had been confirmed thanks to Archetype Entertainment’s parent company Hasbro making a note of it in its quarterly earnings report back in February. In the report, CEO Chris Cocks also said that Exodus will be the start of Hasbro’s push into self-publishing games.

“We have been investing in video games for over seven years through our portfolio of over a dozen projects in various stages of development coupled with 100+ licensing partnerships,” said Cocks. “I’m excited to show off our first project, Exodus, to the world when we launch it in 2026.”

In the meantime, check out details about one of the alien species that players will encounter during their time in Exodus – the Arkavir. In the game’s story, the Arkavir were designed to be the primary workforce for the Celestials in the Centauri Cluster while also being able to handle harsh and hostile environments. The Arkavir can also change up their physical form in order to make themselves more suited for specific harsh environments, from intense heat and unfathomable cold, to flesh-melting acid rain.

Black

Criterion Games might be best known for its work on the Need for Speed series, but its 2006 release Black also deserves a fair amount of appreciation. Despite being a far cry from what the developer was used to, Black was a compelling first-person shooter with some of the best visuals of its time. The story might not be something to write home about, but a solid set of shooting mechanics and thrilling firefights make Black a noteworthy game nevertheless – and it holds surprisingly well to this date.

However, there are games which turn out even better than expected. Even if they looked good, the final result is something truly special. Here are 15 games that are way better than they initially had any right to be.

Inside

Coming off the success of Limbo, Playdead Games began work on Inside, a spiritual successor of sorts. Many praised the former for its presentation and gameplay in 2010. However, despite starting development on Inside two months later, it was a long journey for the studio. Revealed in 2014, it faced some delays, which wasn’t enough to create overwhelming concern. At the time, many expected Inside to be good, but not that good.

And it was more than good on release in 2016. Earning near-universal praise from critics, its dark mood and storytelling were arguably superior to Limbo. The short length also exemplified how a video game could deliver pitch-perfect pacing with compelling puzzles and mechanics, on top of an incredible plot that didn’t hold the player’s hand.

Several years later, Inside is remembered even more fondly than Limbo, transcending its indie identity to become one of the best games ever made.

THE ELDER SCROLLS 5: SKYRIM

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is a nearly a dozen years old at this point, and in that time, it has been re-released countless times and ported to every platform under the sun- but there is, of course, a reason for that. The staying power and enduring quality of Skyrim is undeniable, and even though it has been overtaken by other massive open world experiences in several ways in the years since its launch, taken as a whole, what it offers as a package as incredibly difficult to find elsewhere, and it’s what keeps us coming back to the game.

It’s massive open world, the endless choice it presents to players in how they want to play, the oodles of content it has on offer in terms of its main story, all of its many, many side quests, the plethora of optional activities available throughout its world, the emergent nature of its gameplay- there’s no shortage of reasons that have compelled many of us to go back and start another save on Skyrim multiple times over the years.

Its re-releases, too, have added to that- want to play Skyrim on the go? Here it is on the Nintendo Switch. Want to play a remastered version for your new consoles? Here’s Special Edition. Want to play it again with some additional bells and whistles to celebrate its 10 year anniversary? Here’s Anniversary Edition. Bethesda has smartly kept offering up Skyrim to the masses at regular intervals, and thanks to the timeless design and endless replayability of the game, we’ve been more than happy to oblige.

SUPER MARIO 3D WORLD

Many would argue – and not without merit – that every single 3D mainline Super Mario game is an unabashed genre-defining masterpiece, and yet, even in that lofty company, Super Mario 3D World may very well be one of the series’ shining lights. Releasing on the Wii U didn’t do it any favours, and it wasn’t helped by the initial skeptical response to its reveal back in the day, but once we actually played the game, we were floored by it- the ingenious level design which displays such exhaustive creativity and variety throughout the course of the game, the sheer inch-perfect tightness of the movement and the controls, how incredibly fun it was to play both solo and co-op, how effectively it brushed aside any fears over it being a pared down and linear platforming experience.

Smartly enough, Nintendo decided to re-release Super Mario 3D World on the Switch in 2021, allowing it to be able to flourish on a platform with a massive install base and a userbase that was always actually engaged- and of course, we were more than happy to jump back into the game, because it has the sort of gameplay and design ingenuity that doesn’t fail to delight even on replays.

Of course, it helped that there was another pretty big reason to play the game again, seeing as the Switch release also came packaged with Bowser’s Fury, an entirely new standalone Super Mario experience that offered a meaty chunk of excellent platforming gameplay. Combining the mechanics and movement of 3D World with the more open-ended and sandbox style design of something like Odyssey, Bowser’s Fury proved to be an excellent experience in and of itself as well, and a worthy companion to the 3D World re-release.

THE LAST OF US

The Last of Us may not have the replayability of something like Super Mario 3D World, or the endless player choice and content offerings of Skyrim, but this is just as much of an enduring experience that keeps pulling players back in. That, of course, is down first and foremost to the stellar story, which has been praised to the stratosphere and back countless times of the years, and the characters that populate it, all of it driven by wonderful acting performances and solid, enjoyable stealth and combat gameplay.

Once again though, it helps that Sony has overseen a handful of re-releases to keep giving people another reason to experience The Last of Us all over again. A remaster was released on the PS4 a year after the game’s launch, bundling the game and its DLC together while also bringing significant visual improvements to a game that already looked stunning. Coming at a time when the PS4 was very much the new kid around the block, we (and millions of others) were ecstatic to experience an improved version of one of Sony’s biggest releases of all time on our new, shiny console.

That, of course, was followed last year by The Last of Us Part 1, a ground-up remake that stays extremely faithful to the original in terms of gameplay and story, but once again, makes massive technical and visual improvements, entirely rebuilding the game from scratch while leveraging the PS5’s hardware. And as controversial as its very existence might be, re-experiencing The Last of Us with all of those enhancements once again proved to be a proposition we couldn’t say not to. Sadly, its PC launch has been something of a disaster- but that’s a different story…

METROID PRIME

Good game design is timeless- it’s something that’s been said countless times, and very few games out there prove that as thoroughly as Metroid Prime does. It’s the peak of level design and atmosphere, of how to expertly blend combat and exploration, of how to craft a game that will still be far more compelling to play decades on from its launch than almost anything that has followed it. Metroid Prime took the industry by storm on the GameCube with its release in 2002, and even back then, it was easy to see that this was a game that people would be coming back to again and again and again over the years.

Of course, the Metroid Prime’s trajectory has been a bit more rocky, especially from a commercial perspective, yet even so, Metroid Prime, at the very least, is a game that we’ve had plenty of opportunities to dive back into, whether that’s with its launch on the Wii, which let players play the game with full motion controls, or with the much more recent Metroid Prime Remastered.

The latter in particular is deserving of heaps of praise. It really is a remaster that goes above and beyond in more ways than one, to the extent that calling it a remaster almost doesn’t seem to do it justice. From a gameplay perspective, Retro Studios has left everything about the design and the actual content untouched, but the simple act of being able to play with twin stick controls and finally being able to aim and shoot while moving completely changes the game, and arguably even improves it. Meanwhile, on the audio visual front, the glow-up that Metroid Prime has received with this remaster is almost startling- hell, it may even be one of the best looking games on the Nintendo Switch.

GRAND THEFT AUTO 5

Well, of course people keep going back to GTA 5– it’s sold over 175 million copies, and by the time this sentence is finished, it’ll probably have sold another million. New players, returning players, you name it- there’s no shortage of people out there who are constantly jumping into GTA 5, and then jumping back in. And yes, it has an excellent campaign that probably does hold the attention of a great many players, even now, a decade on from the game’s launch- but let’s face it, GTA Online is what has primarily fueled this train over the years, and still continues to.

No one could have predicted that GTA Online would grow into what it went on to become, but by now, it’s a dynasty in and of itself, driving so much engagement, attracting so many players, and earning so much money that thanks to it, GTA 5 still manages to outsell some of the biggest new releases, even today. Is it disappointing that that had to come at the cost of Rockstar making single player DLC for the game? Absolutely it is- but you can’t argue with the results.

And of course, there has been no shortage of re-releases either, from its PS4 and Xbox One port a year after its initial launch, to a PC version not long after that, to, of course, the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S remaster in 2022. Of these, the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S has obviously been the most underwhelming, but time hasn’t done nearly enough to dull this game’s quality just yet.

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.

That’s as per journalist Jeff Grubb, who recently took to Twitter to double down on past claims regarding the same. In June last year, Grubb leaked that Nintendo has Metroid Prime Remastered primed for release for the Nintendo Switch, and that though it would be launching as a standalone game, the company intended to bring Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption to the platform down the line as well.

Interestingly, at the time, Grubb mentioned that unlike the original game, Metroid Prime 2 and 3’s Switch re-releases would not be major overhauled remasters but would instead be launched as much more conservative upgrades featuring updated controls. Based on his latest tweet, it would seem like that’s still very much the plan.

Of course, Nintendo’s plans for unannounced games are always hard to nail down, and leaks related to the company have frequently been proven false time and again, so for now, it’d be best to tread with caution here. Fans of Metroid, however, will certainly be hoping that the full Prime trilogy does indeed become available on the Switch before the launch of Metroid Prime 4 (whenever that happens).

In our review of Metroid Prime Remastered, we awarded it a score of 9/10, saying, “Metroid Prime Remastered is the best way to play one of the best games ever made.” Read the full review through here.

Correct. https://t.co/ojMzuRohp5

— Grubb (@JeffGrubb) February 13, 2023

"The alarming thing about Metroid Prime is that it simply refuses to age."

Metroid Prime was a total, thorough, comprehensive, unmitigated truimph in pretty much every possible way. It looked so stunning, so gorgeous, that it was among the best looking games ever (and it the tech and art underlying it all was so far ahead of its time that even today, the original Metroid Prime holds up. No longer the best looking game ever, but a good looking game regardless). The sound design was incredible, and thoroughly grounded you on the lost, alien, lonely planet you found yourself isolated on. The world design was a true 3D translation of the dizzying labyrinths of Super Metroid, but now in full 3D, seen through Samus Aran’s visor.

The storytelling went above and beyond most other games in the medium, presaging the rise of passive, interactive, and environmental storytelling techniques that future games such as Shadow of the Colossus, Prey, the Dark Souls games, as well as Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, would take cues from. And the overall structure, design, and gameplay of the title was legendary, and ended up influencing countless games to come in the years and decades since. I brought up From Soft and Dark Souls earlier – playing Metroid Prime Remastered shows us just how much of its DNA was present pretty much wholesale in that, and so many other games.

The alarming thing about Metroid Prime is that it simply refuses to age. In terms of gameplay, world design, music, storytelling, and even the graphics as already mentioned, it still holds up on par with, or beyond, most other modern games. You can turn it on right now for the first time and within a few minutes, you may completely forget that you are playing a 21 year old game. In other words, Nintendo and Retro Studios could have quite simply taken the original Metroid Prime as is, maybe upscaled the resolution, made it widescreen, and make it run in 60fps, and it would still hold up. But they chose to go above and beyond, to deliver a truly definitive version of one of the most definitive games ever.

"Metroid Prime Remastered almost feels like a misnomer. The game’s visual facelift is so massive, so immense, that pretty much every single visual asset you can see or interact with in any capacity has been redone from the ground up."

Metroid Prime Remastered almost feels like a misnomer. The game’s visual facelift is so massive, so immense, that pretty much every single visual asset you can see or interact with in any capacity has been redone from the ground up. Environmental geometry, lighting, particle effects, alpha and transparencies, textures, resolution, frame rate, meshes, everything is rebuilt to make Metroid Prime Remastered look like you remember the original game looking, but brought up to modern standards. So overzealous is the update, in fact, that in the process, Metroid Prime Remastered ends up becoming one of the best looking games on the Switch, while being an update to a 21 year old GameCube game. It is a very thorough, very comprehensive, very extensive visual remake. We’ll come back to this in a second.

The remarkable thing about it all is that while the visuals are updated to an absurd degree – this game is closer to Bluepoint’s Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls, or the just released (and excellent) Dead Space remake in terms of the visual facelift it got – all of that happened without the original art style or atmosphere or aesthetic being compromised at all.

Usually, at least some of the original aesthetic ends up being diluted or compromised once more detail is added to an image (in part because very often, the original aesthetic exists the way it does because of the technical limitations of its time). In this case, somehow, that did not happen. It just serves to reinforce just how incredibly ahead of its time and future proof the core art style of Metroid Prime really was all that time ago to begin with. 

I’ve called the game a visual remake a few times already, and I want to explain that terminology, at least the way I see it, a little. In terms of the graphics and visuals, this game goes far beyond a simple remaster. Every asset is either touched up and updated beyond recognition, or outright redone from the ground up. But the actual core game here is identical to what you played in 2002. With one critical exception which we’ll get to in a second, this is very literally the exact same game that it was all that time ago.

The maps, level design, enemy design, AI, even the HUD and UI, nothing has changed at all. You would think that this would be hearing, particularly given the game’s age, and the efforts made to bring it up to modern standards in the presentation related areas, but it isn’t. As I mentioned, Metroid Prime was so far ahead of its time, and so bonkers in terms of being great at what it set out to do, that it manages to not only hold up as a modern game today, but ends up being better than most other modern games in the process too. 

"The one area where the game makes changes – a lot of them – is the controls."

The one area where the game makes changes – a lot of them – is the controls. Well, changes might be the wrong term to use, because what it does is add things. Options, really. The game allows you to not only play with the original GameCube controls (in case you never played the original release, the GameCube release was not dual analog, and instead had a very unique and specific control scheme that people love to this day – so it’s good that they brought it back), but also the excellent Wii controls (the pointer based aiming from the Wii release has to be emulated using gyro on the Switch.

It’s more accurate, but also more sensitive to drift, and requires you to reset the cursor fairly frequently), and a fully fledged, modern dual analog control scheme. The game includes gyro assist for aiming, it includes a toggle for the lock on, allowing you to have a full lock-on, a “soft” lock-on that air you in the right direction, but lets you make specific adjustments, and no lock on at all. You can customize individual axes for the camera, sensitivity, and you can even mix and match these options on the fly. What’s most impressive is that each of them feels well balanced, and the game somehow lets you switch between these completely different control styles (that all lead to very distinct and unique flows and gameplay loops from one another) on the fly.

Other than the control options, Metroid Prime Remasted also includes some new accessibility options (there is a color blindness assist filter that I am reasonably sure is new, and that I was happy to see, given how much the world gating and UI and HUD in Prime rely on colors to convey information), all the extra content that the game ever got (including everything in the original concept art gallery, from models, artwork, and music, to other unlockables), and even the narration that was added in the European and Japanese versions of the game. 

"In literally every way possible, this is the best, most definitive, most comprehensive release of Metroid Prime."

Really, in literally every way possible, this is the best, most definitive, most comprehensive release of Metroid Prime. It includes all the content from all the different versions. It includes all the control schemes from all the different versions (including some of its own). It includes this game looking the best it ever has, veering on being a full on remake, without diluting or compromising on the look and atmosphere of the original.

And at its core it is the same game from 20 years ago untouched, except that 20 year old game is so ridiculously ahead of pretty much everything else on almost every single front that matters (and certainly every single area that it puts up a fight in), that even with the core being untouched, 20 years later, this game ends up being better than most other games released today regardless. Like, literally, on every possible level, big and small, this represents the best possible version of one of the best possible games you can buy today, in any genre, on any platform. 

And all of this for only $40 is absurd. It’s a steal. Metroid Prime Remastered, just by existing in the form it does, becomes one of the best looking, playing, and just best in general, games of this year, of the Switch, and of the generation in general. You must try it, whether it will be your first time (win which case you are in for a treat) or your umpteenth replay.

And you can join me, and the other long suffering Metroid fans, in hoping that Prime 4, whenever it does end up coming out, actually lives up to the absurdly, unreasonably high bar set by this 21 year old game.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

From the outset, environments use higher-resolution textures with more detail. The models, including Samus Aran, have also been heavily improved – the glow on the Arm Cannon is but one of many incredible details. The lighting and effects, like fire, have also been overhauled, and it all runs in a silky smooth 60 FPS, like the original.

Metroid Prime Remastered launches physically on February 22nd, so stay tuned for details when that’s available. Interestingly, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb, who reported several times on the remaster, also alleged that Metroid Prime 2 and 3 would be re-released for Nintendo Switch. These aren’t major overhauls but reportedly have updated controls.

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.

On Giant Bomb’s latest episode of Game Mess Mornings, Jeff Grubb revealed that he heard “pretty definitively” that Metroid Prime remaster would be one of Nintendo’s “big Holiday games.” “In the past, this is something I heard was in the works. They had things happening with that game…Now, it’s like, I’ve been told that their plans are to release that game this Holiday.” This is “almost certainly” to line up with Metroid Prime’s 20th anniversary in November.

What about Metroid Prime 2 and 3? Grubb said that they would release it separately. Furthermore, while Metroid Prime is getting the “big remaster treatment” (as per his understanding), Metroid Prime 2 and 3 will have updated controls but not quite the same overhaul. We’ll have to wait for more details but for now, it seems that Metroid Prime’s remaster is the big one to look forward to.

In the meantime, Retro Studios is also working on Metroid Prime 4 with producer Kensuke Tanabe at the helm. Development restarted under the studio in early 2019 but there have been no further updates. Who knows, maybe we’ll receive an update when Metroid Prime’s remaster is announced. Stay tuned in the meantime.

Rumours of a standalone Metroid Prime 1 remaster – allegedly quite an ambitious project that is due out in 2022 – have been doing the rounds for a while at this point, and we’ve got more of that here. Known Nintendo leaker NateTheHate recently said in a video that the remaster is going to launch in the second half of 2022, and that to go along with the original Metroid Prime’s 20th anniversary, Nintendo might position the game as the big Switch launch for the end-of-the-year period.

Of course, it’s never easy to be sure about any leaks or unconfirmed reports where Nintendo is confirmed, and Metroid fans in particular have been burned with leaks more than a few times in recent years- so for now, take this with a grain of salt. We’ll keep an eye out for new details though, so stay tuned for more updates.