Metroid Prime 4 is something of a mystery. So much so, that fans of the series will leap on any announcement, tease, or grain of information about Samus’s next 3D adventure in an instant. The latest hint to come our way is from developer Retro Studios itself, in the form of a new Twitter banner.
Spotted by prolific gaming tweeter Nibel , Retro Studios has updated their Twitter banner to a new, previously unseen piece of concept art that appears to give us our first visual tease of Metroid Prime 4.
The artwork features what looks to be a silhouette of Samus standing in the middle of an atmospheric corridor. The architecture around her looks fairly alien, and the blue filter gives the impression she’s underground or within the gangway of a spaceship. The added border at the top and bottom of the image might suggest we’re looking through another character’s visor, too.
Social media banners don’t usually stir much excitement, but given how little we’ve seen of the game since it was first announced in 2017 and later handed over to Retro Studios in 2019, fans are making the most of opportunity in some pretty wild speculation threads .
One Twitter user thought the image might be the first-person view through the visor of bounty hunter and long-time Samus antagonist Sylux. “I've been waiting for the triple Sylux payoff from Hunters, Prime 3, and Federation Force for so Long,” wrote Biotanker.
Others pointed out the image’s blue tinge is similar in color to the Phazon energy that cropped up throughout the original Metroid Prime trilogy before being destroyed in its climax. Phazon played a big part in the second game, creating its chief antagonist Dark Samus, and appeared back in the third to create a new breed of mutated Metroids.
A poster on Reset Era suggested the image looked like an abandoned duct, and might hint at the “that the game will be more dark and desolate than previous titles. Maybe they will go back to the creepy nature of the original Metroid.”
Others have been a little more conservative in their speculation, with one Reddit user noting that Samus’s bulky armor design doesn’t appear to have significantly changed from the previous Metroid Prime Games. And, of course, others treated the reveal a little more lightly, jokingly pointing out it’s been five years since the game’s initial reveal, and all they’ve got to see is a single piece of concept art.
Analysis: more to come?
A five-year wait for only a single piece of cryptic concept art will probably leave some Metroid Prime fans disappointed, but the mere appearance of the artwork suggests Retro Studios is gearing up for a bigger reveal. Up to this point, news on the game has been extremely sparse.
Outside of an original reveal trailer, the odd job listing, and the shock announcement in January 2019 that Nintendo had scrapped Bandai Namco’s original design to hand the project to series creator Retro Studios, we haven’t seen anything concrete.
During February’s Nintendo Direct, the publisher announced a whole host of upcoming games for Nintendo Switch, including Mario Strikers: Battle League , Nintendo Switch Sports , and a new Fire Emblem Warriors . Metroid Prime 4 wasn’t among them, but with multiple presentations held throughout the year, it’s not unlikely we’ll see Samus Aran popping up in a new trailer sometime in the next 12 months.
In the meantime, though, you can pick up a copy of the excellent Metroid Dread .
Rokform cases offer a great combination of protection and functionality for your new Galaxy S22
The Galaxy S22 lineup is Samsung’s latest flagship series that promises to offer impressive specs with beautiful hardware and powerful cameras to match. They’ve been building quality flagship devices for years and there’s no doubt the S22 series will be just as impressive.
These phones don’t come cheap though, and no matter how well-built Samsung promises them to be, at the end of the day they’re still just slabs of metal and glass, just as easy to break as they’ve always been.
That’s why it’s always a good idea to invest in a case to keep them protected. Unfortunately, when it comes to cases, there’s typically two kinds to choose from: you can either go with the stylish cases that aren’t very protective or the super rugged cases that will keep your phone safe, but also take don’t let you use many of your other accessories very well, like wireless chargers or car mounts.
Rokform cases give you the best of both worlds. Rokform is no stranger to case making as they've been building durable cases since 2010 and they’re wide range of accessories give you everything you need to get the most out of your new Galaxy S22.
What makes Rokform stand apart, aside from the slim, rugged, military-grade protection of their cases, is the patented RokLock Twist Lock system. This system allows you to quickly and easily connect your phone to one of the mounts with the peace of mind that your phone is securely locked in place.
You simply lineup the phone on the mount and twist to lock it into place. So whether you’re shredding the trails or fighting your way through traffic, you know your phone isn’t going anywhere.
A third great feature of Rokform’s cases is the powerful magnet just below the twist lock that lets you quickly snap your phone onto any magnetic surface without a second thought. You can touch the phone to any magnetic surface, like a golf cart pole, metal bench, or car mount. If you need to quickly go hands-free, it’s a really convenient feature to have.
And for this year, Samsung isn’t the only one who’s made improvements to their products. Rokform has upgraded the integrated magnets this year to make them bigger and stronger so you get an even more secure hold.
For those who have been frustrated about having to choose between a stylish phone case that looks good or a heavy-duty rugged one that adds a ton of bulk to their phone, Rokform cases offer the best of both worlds.
They’re slim and stylish, while still offering military-grade protection, all while giving you some really incredible functionality. So whether you’re going to get the new Galaxy S22 , S22 Plus , or S22 Ultra this year, be sure to grab a Rokform case to go with it.
And the best part is that they’re giving away some of their new cases and accessories to one of our lucky U.S. readers. Simply enter using the widget below for your chance to win.
This is what Elden Ring at 8K looks and plays like with the Nvidia RTX 3090
With FromSoftware, the team behind critically acclaimed titles like Dark Souls and Bloodborne , teaming up with A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin, it's little surprise that Elden Ring - the fruit of that collaboration - has been so eagerly awaited.
Now that it's out, the reviews for it have been fantastic. However, I was keen to see how the game looks and plays at 8K on TechRadar's monster 8K test machine.
As with trying Dying Light 2 at 8K , I've been using the LG 55NANO966PA 8K TV for testing on, and when combined with the powerful Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics card, this setup can give us a taste of what the future of gaming may hold.
Hard mode activated
With 8K resolution weighing in at a huge 7,680 x 4,320, running any game is going to be extremely demanding, especially ambitious open world games with huge enemies, such as Elden Ring.
However, we've seen recent games like Dying Light 2 and God of War come with support for Nvidia's DLSS upscaling technology, along with AMD's rival FidelityFX. Both of these features run games at lower resolutions, then upscale them to a higher resolution which offers better performance with minimal impact to graphics.
Both DLSS and FidelityFX Super Resolution have helped modern games hit 8K resolutions while maintaining playable framerates, with some even hitting 60 frames per second (fps) at 8K - what we consider to be the ultimate benchmark for 8K gaming.
Unfortunately, the PC version of Elden Ring is relatively barebones, and doesn't offer DLSS or FidelityFX support. This means we'll need to attempt to play the game at native 8K resolution - a challenge as difficult as FromSoftware's notorious difficulty levels in its games.
The game is also capped at 60fps, and while that won't impact how it plays at 8K, as HDMI 2.1 can only support a maximum of 60fps at 8K anyway, it suggests that the PC port wasn't a priority for FromSoftware. This, sadly, does not bode well for how the game can play at 8K.
Playing at 8K
First of all, I set the game to 8K with the graphics settings at 'Maximum'. The game certainly looked very good, but in my tests the game averaged 30.5 fps. On the one hand, this is pretty impressive, and above the 30fps minimum I consider to be playable.
However, there were some noticeable frame rate drops to as low as 8.3fps. This made the game feel rather choppy when playing. Interestingly, PC players have been complaining about sudden fps drops at other resolutions, and FromSoftware has promised a patch to fix that. We could see performance improve a bit at 8K, then.
But, while Elden Ring is certainly playable at 8K with Maximum settings, this is a game where fast reflexes really make a difference, and at 30fps the game feels sluggish compared to the 60fps it hits at 4K on the same PC.
Next, I knocked the settings down to 'High'. While this didn't make a big difference to the average frame rate, which was only slightly higher at 31.6fps, this time I didn't see quite as big drops in fps, with 25.5fps as the minimum.
This led to a much more consistent performance, and the graphical difference was minor enough for me to recommend this setting.
Dropping the settings down further to 'Medium' again didn't change the average frame rate much (31.4fps), which suggests that the engine Elden Ring uses just isn't suited for extreme resolutions. Graphical quality was noticeably degraded, however, with distracting pop-in affecting far away objects and NPCs (non-player characters), and rough edges on objects where anti-aliasing had been downgraded.
The drop in graphical quality and lack of corresponding performance increase means this is a setting to avoid.
Finally, I tried Elden Ring at 8K on 'Low' settings. This gave me the best results so far, with an average frame rate of 38.9, a bit leap over previous settings. However, visuals again took a hit, with textures and shadows being particularly impacted, and prone to flickering. Again, the impact to visuals wasn't worth the frame rate gains I managed.
8K dreams crushed (kind of)
So, my Elden Ring 8K dreams were crushed. Sure, it's playable at 8K at 30fps, and it does look very good, but this is a game you really want to play at 60fps. Dropping the resolution to 4K allowed the RTX 3090 to hit a steady 60fps with settings on maximum, and the game felt so much smoother and more responsive.
It is a shame, however, that the PC version of Elden Ring feels rather undercooked. Not only are their frame rate issues that impact players at lower resolutions, but the lack of DLSS or FidelityFX support is a real shame.
Also, while the art direction of the game is at times breath-taking, it's not the most graphically impressive title out there. If you want a real 8K showcase, God of War remains the game to beat.