Metroid Prime 4 will finally release in 2025, some eight years after its initial announcement in 2017. While the long-awaited sequel is closer to release than ever, it seems like Amazon is taking the opportunity to go back and cancel the whole thing. those old pre-orders.
According to posts on Reddit, Twitter, and other forms of social media like ResetEra, Amazon has begun canceling Metroid Prime 4 pre-orders en masse. Some of those orders date back to the game's original announcement in 2017, and the cancellation messages simply They say the game is “out of stock.”
Naturally, there has been a lot of speculation as to why these cancellations are occurring. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that since Amazon's stock of first-party Switch games has been sporadic in recent years, it may not be able to guarantee its stock of Metroid Prime 4.
Many of these pre-orders date back to when Amazon was still offering discounts on pre-order prices, and they certainly occurred long before Nintendo opened the $70 floodgates with Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Even if Amazon stocked Metroid Prime 4 directly, they probably wouldn't want to accept those $48 pre-orders for a $70 game.
Of course, some people are taking the most ridiculous position possible: that all of this means that Metroid Prime 4 is canceled on Switch and will be released exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2. It's reasonable to imagine that Nintendo could release the game on both current-gen and the next generation. platforms (after all, the same thing happened with Breath of the Wild in the transition from Wii U to Switch), but friends, come on. Nintendo probably wouldn't have re-revealed Prime 4 as a Switch game just six months ago if the company was about to cancel that version and make it next-gen only.
But hey, Nintendo's unpredictability has overtaken industry analysts more qualified than me. For now, consider this a public service announcement to check your inbox if you're still waiting for an Amazon delivery for your copy of Metroid Prime 4.
These are the upcoming Switch games that will see the console in 2025.