At Tuesday's Nintendo Direct, the gaming giant showed that it really, truly has been working on the next installment of the Metroid Prime series by revealing a new trailer for the game, dubbed Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. It will hit the Switch in 2025.

The trailer shows space pirates, the classic Metroid villains, attacking a base. We see series protagonist Samus Aran take these foes down, scan an enemy and transform into her morph ball form in order to avoid other baddies. Then Samus uses her power shot and missiles to take down some pirates and clear paths of debris.

Nintendo also showed off the new logo for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which is reminiscent of the logos of both Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, perhaps hinting at a return to the heavy, almost suffocating, atmospheres of those titles.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has had a long and troubled development since it was announced in 2017. After the initial announcement, Nintendo said in 2019 that development had restarted, and that Kensuke Tanabe would return to produce.

Nintendo released Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in 2007, making the window between then and next year the longest development in the series' history. However, other Metroid titles outside of the Prime series have been released since then, such as 2010's Metroid: Other M and 2021's Metroid Dread. 

Since the release of Metroid Prime in 2002, there have only been three other Metroid games released, not including remakes, outside of the series -- the Prime titles and Metroid Fusion, which was released alongside Metroid Prime in 2002. For perspective, there have been 10 games released in the Legend of Zelda series in that same timeframe.

For more Nintendo news, here's what to know about the upcoming Zelda game announced at Nintendo Direct 2024.