Before there was Master Chief, there was Samus Aran. The silent, brooding space hero was one of the first badass female protagonists in video games. Aran—decked out in her Power Suit—was originally thought to be a man, but if you beat the original 1986 game in under 5 hours, it was revealed that this was not the case.
Samus Aran was a girl, and as a young boy I thought that was a pretty cool twist. There weren’t a lot of girls in games back then, outside of Princess Peach, Tyris Flare and some Street Fighter characters.
(As far as I know, most gamers agreed. Turns out, a lot of us have been fans of strong female protagonists for decades!)
Metroid Prime, the first first-person shooter iteration of the Metroid franchise, released in November of 2002, just one year after the release of Halo: Combat Evolved. The two series would become the chief FPS titles on Nintendo and Xbox platforms respectively, though Halo would become a much more important property for Microsoft than Metroid ever has been for Nintendo.
It’s been 7 years since the reveal of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which was first announced with a logo in 2017 and later rebooted in 2019, when the original Metroid Prime developer, Retro Studios, took over development of the project.
The trailer looks terrific. I don’t play much on my Nintendo Switch these days (thanks, Joy-Con drift!) but this will bring me back in 2025:
I still need to play Metroid Prime Remastered as well, and I never did finish the excellent Metroid Dread. There are too many damn games and not enough time.
Nintendo also announced a brand new Zelda game today—with a really crazy twist. Read about that right here.
P.S. While Halo came out in November of 2001 and Metroid Prime came out in November of 2002, another legendary FPS launched in November of 2004: Half-Life 2. Which means that it’s been nearly 20 years of waiting for Half-Life 3 to come out. You think waiting 8 years for Metroid Prime 4 is a big deal? 12 years for Winds Of Winter? I was 23 when I finished Half-Life 2!
