The Best Sci-Fi Game of 2025 Is Being Saved For the Very End of the Year

What will likely end up being the best sci-fi game of 2025 is being saved for the very end of the year. To this point in 2025, we’ve already had a number of excellent video games that belong to the sci-fi genre. Titles like Split Fiction, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, The Alters, Citizen Sleeper 2, The Outer Worlds 2, and so many others have launched this year and have been a hit with players. Now, in a little over a month, one classic sci-fi franchise is set to return, and based on history, it’s likely going to end up being the highest-rated game of all.

Arriving on December 4th, Nintendo is gearing up to finally let loose Metroid Prime 4: Beyond on Switch and Switch 2. The latest entry in the long-running sci-fi shooter series, Beyond is set to be the first mainline Metroid Prime game that has come about since 2007’s Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. And while fans have had to wait almost 20 years for a fourth installment, there’s no reason to believe that it won’t be anything but stellar.

Metroid Prime Games Are Some of Nintendo’s Best

Outside of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario, Metroid is likely the highest-rated Nintendo property of all. The series, which began on Nintendo GameCube in 2002, has always garnered a ton of praise from critics and players, even if that acclaim hasn’t necessarily translated to high sales. Metroid as a whole is likely the best-reviewed sci-fi franchise ever, but it’s the Prime sub-series that is often looked at as the true peak of what Metroid has to offer.

To this day, the first Metroid Prime is still the top-reviewed GameCube game in history, sporting an absurd 97/100 aggregate score on Metacritic. This doesn’t just make it the best game to ever release on GameCube, but it puts it on a short list of the most acclaimed video games ever. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes isn’t far behind, either, and sports a 92/100 score on Metacritic. Meanwhile, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is the “worst” of the trilogy yet still touts a 90/100 score of its own.

Considering this long history of Metroid Prime games reviewing at such a high level, there’s no reason to believe that there will be a drop off in quality with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. This is especially true given that the original developer behind the series, Retro Studios, is again behind the wheel with this new game. When all is said and done, Metroid Prime 4 could garner the best review scores for any game in 2025, let alone those that simply belong to the sci-fi genre.

Nintendo Is Putting Quality Above All With Metroid Prime 4

What really furthers this belief that Metroid Prime 4 will be nothing short of excellent is based on how Nintendo has handled the project. In case you forgot (or simply didn’t know), Metroid Prime 4 was announced for Nintendo Switch all the way back in 2017. However, Nintendo wasn’t happy with how the game was panning out behind the scenes and opted to completely start development over from scratch in early 2019. This time around, Retro was put in charge once again.

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Why Metroid Prime 4’s Development Has Taken Longer Than Any Nintendo Game Ever

The fact that Nintendo chose to reboot Metroid Prime 4’s development really speaks volumes to how the company views this series and the level of quality that it wants each game to have. Many other publishers around the globe might have pushed forward with development of the original product, even if it wasn’t panning out as hoped. Instead, Nintendo was fine with sacrificing countless millions of dollars to scrap everything that Metroid Prime 4 was in order to create a better final game.

Because of this decision, there’s reason to believe that Metroid Prime 4 is going to be really, really special. Based on what we know publicly, there seems to be more care and focus put into MP4 than any other title that Nintendo has worked on for the past decade or more. If that care translates into the final experience, we could be looking at Metroid Prime 4 as a Game of the Year frontrunner and not just the best game within the sci-fi space.

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