Picking up a video game in 2025 is a real commitment. Nowadays, players demand deeper stories, immersive experiences, and digital worlds that they can lose themselves in for hundreds of hours. Even people who enjoy video games, but wouldn't necessarily call themselves gamers, find it impossible to finish more than one major studio release a year. So Esquire is breaking down the absolute best the medium had to offer in 2025 throughout this week,
To obtain this Energy Tank in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, you need to pick up the three elemental chips in their respective areas. Bring these to Mackenzie in your base camp in Fury Green to unlock elemental shot variants. The Fire Chip/Fire Shot comes from Flare Pool. The Ice Chip/Ice Shot, meanwhile, comes from Ice Belt. Lastly, the Thunder Chip/Thunder Shot comes from Volt Forge. Note that you still need certain Power Suit abilities before you can access some areas.
Are you wondering about the locations of all Shot Expansions in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond? Samus gains various weapons that have different elemental attributes. The problem is that ammo tends to be limited unless you find pick-ups or rest at a save point.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is one of those games that been a long time coming. Fans have been waiting almost a decade for the next entry in Samus' first-person adventures. Early previews painted an alarming picture of overly chatty sidekicks ruining what's traditionally a lonely and moody experience. Meanwhile formal reviews run a gamut of opinions, leaving the game in the interesting if tiresome discourse-inducing "7 / 10" range - not perfect, not awful, but possessed of a certain something
Launching on December 4, Metroid Prime 4 is Nintendo's last big game of 2025 and has a lot of hype and hope surrounding it. Fans have been wanting an entire console generation. So when previews last month featured an overly talkative sidekick, a big departure from the often atmospheric and empty worlds of past Prime games, people were nervous. Would players quickly grow tired of some bumbling sidekick?
As the Metroid Prime series has gone on, it's leaned progressively more into fast-paced action and linear stories, while deemphasizing the more open-ended exploration of the original game. That shift is seen in full force in the intro to Metroid Prime 4. A Galactic Federation base guarding a mysterious alien relic is under attack, and spacefaring bounty hunter Samus Aran is there to help.
The latest game in the Assassin's Creed series may be making its way to Nintendo Switch 2 soon, and according to some recent rumors, its arrival is already looking a little rocky. Developer Ubisoft hasn't even confirmed whether Assassin's Creed Shadows is really heading to Switch 2, but evidence of the port is stacking up, with some details suggesting that it will be running headfirst into the new console's biggest controversy and one of its most anticipated games.
Ahead of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond's release this December, fans of the iconic Nintendo series can revisit the original Prime Trilogy in written form. On October 28, an official Metroid Prime Trilogy retrospective will be published by Piggyback, the strategy guide publisher best known for its excellent Legend of Zelda guidebooks. Preorders for Metroid Prime 1-3: A Visual Retrospective are available now at Amazon for $46.49 (was $50).
