Nintendo gave us another glimpse of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond during the Switch Direct last week and some fans have been so impressed with the visuals on display they are convinced it’s footage of the game running on Switch 2.
If you, or anyone else you know are feeling the same way about what you’re seeing, you might want to watch this latest clip from the team at Digital Foundry – perhaps unsurprisingly confirming there’s no actual Switch 2 footage on display here.
There’s a lot of baked lighting, shadows, and segmented areas, and it looks very similar to the Metroid Prime Remaster dating back to 2023. The trailer is running at 60fps (with a resolution of “about 900p”), but there are also other similarities to the previous release in terms of image quality – like little to no anti-aliasing, and overall it’s a very “jagged” and “raw” looking game.
“There are no signs of Switch 2 features like DLSS, or TAA, or high-res rendering, there’s no big new lighting effect or upgraded lighting, or anything like that necessarily seems like it would come from a Switch 2 upgrade here… the visual appearance of this trailer is like firmly in Switch 1 territory.”
Despite ruling out this being Switch 2 footage, Digital Foundry still thinks Metroid Prime 4: Beyond still looks amazing and could potentially end up being one of the best-looking games of the Switch generation – pushing the system to its limits.
They’re also thinking there’s a real chance Nintendo will bring this game to the Switch 2 in some way or form – a bit like certain other cross-generation titles such as Zelda: Twilight Princess and Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
“And because of the strong art direction visual design… don’t think they [Retro] would necessarily need to do too much to it, other than massively improve image quality.”
