Metroid Prime
Image: Nintendo

Metroid Prime, the iconic first-person adventure game from developer Retro Studios, celebrates its 20th anniversary today.

Originally launched in North America back on November 18th, 2002, the game marked a drastic change in direction for the Metroid franchise, moving from 2D spaces to a fully 3D rendered world, encompassing multiple unique locations and implementing new gameplay mechanics such as the beloved scan visor.

Metroid Prime hit the spot for gamers worldwide and has since gone down as one of the greatest games ever made. Heck, at the time of writing, it's still sitting pretty at the number one spot in our reader-ranked list of the best GameCube games! It was given a new lease of life in 2009 as part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii, implementing full motion controls and updated presentation, and is now heavily rumoured to be launching for the Switch with remastered visuals.

Ex-developers and fans have been celebrating the milestone on Twitter too. Here are a few choice examples that we've managed to spot:

Of course, Retro Studios is currently plugging away at Metroid Prime 4, the eagerly awaited fourth entry to the sub-series that should, in theory, still be making its way to the Switch at some point soon (though we're personally not ruling out the possibility of it migrating to Nintendo's next major hardware).

The game was initially announced over five years ago at E3 2017. Although heavily rumoured to be in development by Bandai Namco Studios, Nintendo announced that production was being reset in early 2019 and would be back in the hands of veteran developer Retro Studios. No further update has since been provided.

What are you favourite memories of Metroid Prime for the GameCube? Are you still playing it to this day? Lower your scan visor down to the comments below and let us know!