What Metroid Prime games are there?
Three Retro adventures, two handheld experiments, one pinball table, one compilation, one remaster, and a fourth adventure eighteen years late.
The Prime name covers more than a trilogy. Between 2002 and 2025 it names the series’ whole 3D life: Retro’s GameCube and Wii games, Nintendo Software Technology’s arena shooter, Fuse Games’ pinball, Next Level’s co-op detour, and the long road to Beyond.
THE TRILOGY
Retro Studios
Prime · 2002
Tallon IV and the Phazon mystery. 2.84 million copies; the template for everything on this page.
Echoes · 2004
Aether split into light and dark; Dark Samus steps out of the Phazon. Harder, stranger, 1.10 million.
Corruption · 2007
Wii motion aiming and a multi-planet war to close the Phazon arc. Nintendo’s casual-era marketing barely touched it; it sold 1.41 million anyway. Cover image not yet verified for the archive.
Trilogy · 2009
All three on one Wii disc in a steelbook collector’s case, with Corruption’s controls retrofitted to the first two. Nintendo ceased shipping it in January 2010 and suggested second-hand copies: the edition’s strange, collectible window.
THE BRANCHES
Prime beyond Retro
Hunters · 2006 · DS
NST’s arena chapter: six rival hunters, online multiplayer, and the debut of Sylux, whose thread runs all the way to Beyond.
Pinball · 2005 · DS
Fuse Games renders Tallon IV as two pinball tables. It is exactly as odd as it sounds, and better than it has any right to be.
Federation Force · 2016 · 3DS
Next Level Games’ co-op missions, played as Federation troopers, with a soccer mode called Blast Ball. Announced into a fan petition for its cancellation (over 12,000 signatures) and a commercial failure on arrival.
Remastered · 2023 · Switch
Retro, assisted by Iron Galaxy, rebuilds the 2002 game in HD. Announced in a Nintendo Direct and released the same day: a 94 on Metacritic and 1.09 million copies.