After Nintendo executive Shinya Takahashi announced that all work on Metroid Prime 4 was restarted under Retro Studios in January 2019, not much else has been officially revealed about the highly-anticipated title. However, it seems Czech online retailer SuperGamer may have leaked that the game will be available to the public on October 30, 2020.
Currently Metroid Prime 4 is available to pre-order at SuperGamer, with guarantees that orders will be delivered quickly and that the site will match the lowest marketed price of the game when that is announced. The site also lists some basic selling points about Metroid Prime 4 returning to a first-person perspective and taking players in new directions, but there are no ratings for the game.
With that said, excited buyers should be wary because this is not the first time the retailer has leaked a release date for Samus' upcoming adventure. Before the restarted development was announced, SuperGamer said Metroid Prime 4 would be coming last November in what may have been a placeholder date.
The Metroid Prime series, which took Nintendo's classic 2D franchise that helped coin the term "Metroidvania" and translated it into atmospheric first-person shooters, is highly acclaimed and beloved by the gaming populace. When Metroid Prime 4 was introduced at E3 2017, to say that people were excited would be an understatement — even if a logo was all they saw.
However its development has clearly been rocky, shifting hands from a new team to the series' original developer Retro Studios. Some work on the game is being outsourced based on job descriptions put out by Retro, and recently the company hired Mirror's Edge and Battlefield Art Director Johny Ljungstedt.
While the SuperGamer leak should be taken with a grain of salt, release dates being revealed early by online retailers is not an uncommon occurrence. Nintendo recently succumbed to the phenomenon when the release date for the remake of Link's Awakening was unveiled by Amazon Japan.
If the Czech website is correct this time around, it would be exciting news for fans who are champing at the bit for a return to the Prime series as soon as possible. A rumor has suggested there will be two Nintendo Directs sometime this February, so perhaps there's a chance the public will find out more official details about Metroid Prime 4 soon.
Metroid Prime 4 is currently in development for Nintendo Switch.
Source: SuperGamer (via BadFive)