16 November 2025

I Played Metroid Prime 4, and I’m Not Worried About Samus’ ‘Annoying’ Sidekick

By newsgame

Now that the embargo date has passed, I can finally talk about the game that’s been burrowing in my mind since I played it last week: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. I flew out to New York to go hands-on with the game, testing it in both handheld and docked mode, and if you’ve read Game Rant’s Metroid Prime 4 preview coverage, you’ll know that I absolutely adored what I played.

I was surprised, then, to find that other previewers’ opinions of the game were a bit more mixed. Interestingly, much of the discourse around the game currently revolves around a relatively small ingredient, chatterbox Myles Mackenzie. Take IGN’s preview of Metroid Prime 4, which focuses heavily on Mackenzie’s inclusion, painting it as an unfortunate portent of things to come. Video Games Chronicle shared this sentiment, publishing an article that claims “Metroid Prime 4 doesn’t feel much like Metroid at all,” citing Mackenzie as the primary reason behind this biting assessment. Such statements seem to have struck a chord with gaming audiences, who have flocked to social media to comment on the apparent cardinal sin of including a voiced NPC in a Metroid game. And while I respect the opinions of my fellow previewers and their audiences, I have to say that I’m quite surprised by how much hate Mackenzie has gotten, and I don’t share the same stance.

Why I Don’t Think Metroid Prime 4’s Companions Are a Big Deal

Metroid Prime 4’s Mackenzie Isn’t as Game-Ruining as Some Claim

Fundamentally, I can understand why Myles Mackenzie is annoying to some players: he’s ostensibly just a Galactic Federation trooper with some convenient hacking skills, and having him around legendary bounty hunter Samus Aran can feel like having a baby around a battlefield. Metroid Prime has historically been about isolation, and the spooky dread that comes along with traveling through the series’ hostile rendition of a galactic neighborhood. Talkative, quippy sidekicks don’t exactly factor into that equation.

Let me be clear here: I absolutely despise quippy, faux-witty, ironic dialog popularized by the likes of the MCU. I’ve always felt that I have a lower tolerance for this sort of overly casual, anachronistic writing, which has turned me off from countless games in the past, from Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Forspoken to less contentious releases like Remnant 2. Even games that I like, such as God of War Ragnarok, are tainted by this Whedon-inspired babbling.

But here’s the thing, Mackenzie isn’t on the level of the characters from those aforementioned titles. I certainly didn’t feel like he was talking “constantly,” as other previewers have alleged: he’s only featured in a portion of the preview, and Samus leaves him to explore and solve puzzles on her own for extended periods. While I’d be lying if I said Mackenzie’s dialog meaningfully enhanced my time with the game, I also can’t call it a death sentence. It’s perhaps not a glowing commendation for Mackenzie, but when I think of my time with Metroid Prime 4, he really doesn’t come to my mind one way or the other. He’s just not that impactful, and the rest of the game, from its combat to its atmosphere and soundtrack, come across as powerfully as ever. One talkative side character doesn’t diminish that, in my view.

Worth noting is that Mackenzie is introduced during the first real chapter of Metroid Prime 4, which might explain some of his chattiness: he’s used for tutorialization at this stage.

Mechanically speaking, I’m not too stressed about Metroid Prime 4‘s companions either. The only extended escort-style passage with Mackenzie takes place about halfway through the preview, when he and Samus are crossing a bridge. Samus has to draw fire away from him and revive him once he gets hurt, but this isn’t as tedious or game-breaking as some have argued. If anything, I enjoyed the twist on the regular running and gunning: having to juggle basic combat elements while keeping Mackenzie alive is a compelling, albeit pedestrian, spin that kept Metroid Prime 4‘s combat interesting in this early section.

Shooting at a boss in Metroid Prime 4 Beyond

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that Mackenzie feels like a surprisingly small thing to get worried about. While I didn’t walk away from the Metroid Prime 4 preview completely satisfied (I noted the game’s alternative Switch 2 controls as feeling tacked-on and awkward, for example), I was impressed overall. Maybe my affection for everything else the game seems to be doing right overshadowed any annoyance I would have felt about Mackenzie’s jabbering. And like I said, I most certainly do not have a high tolerance for this specific flavor of clunky, MCU-like dialogue. If I can look past it, then the gamers who look past it in God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, and Avowed should have no problem.

Being Fair: How Mackenzie and Company Could Negatively Impact Metroid Prime 4

Mackenzie was easy to ignore during the preview, but if he winds up playing a considerably bigger role throughout Metroid Prime 4‘s story, I could see it causing some tonal issues. Moreover, a recent trailer for the game teases other companions, which could conceivably detract from the essential lost in space vibes of Prime. Depending on how these companions are used narratively and mechanically, they could be to the game’s detriment on a larger scale.

Metroid Prime 4 Beyond Samus Aran Galactic Federation Trooper Fire

As always, the Devil’s in the details. One could imagine a scenario where Mackenzie and others turn out to be enriching additions to Metroid Prime 4‘s story and gameplay as a result of creative writing and design elements down the road. And just because something is new for a series doesn’t mean that it’s inherently bad—Metroid Prime has to evolve, and Metroid Prime 4 was never just going to be a shinier version of the GameCube or Wii Prime games. I’m not saying that walking, talking companion characters won’t harm Metroid Prime 4 when all is said and done, but the virulent response to just one NPC at one early stage in the game feels like a slight overreaction.