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I still remember the exact moment I stopped treating Hollow Knight: Silksong like a myth and started treating it like a real game. When Team Cherry finally released its long-awaited Metroidvania on all platforms, I felt the same mix of disbelief and relief that had been building since 2019. The game did not just arrive—it landed with force. On OpenCritic, it holds a 95/100 Top Critic Average, with 100% of critics recommending it. On Steam, it sits at 91% positive despite recurring complaints about difficulty. For me, that tension is the point: Silksong is brutal, beautiful, and unapologetically demanding.

The Long Wait Was Not a Joke—Except When It Was

I followed Silksong from its brief 2019 announcement trailer through years of near silence. Team Cherry showed a few trailers here and there, but updates were rare. That quiet period turned into a strange community ritual. Fans made clown memes about Silksong, and I laughed at them because I was in them. Every Nintendo Direct, every showcase, every random Tuesday became a chance to put on the makeup again. The joke was never really about hating the game. It was about how much we wanted it and how little we knew.

Now that Silksong is out, those memes are mostly retired. The conversation has shifted to boss fights, tools, Crests, and the game's steep learning curve. I have seen plenty of players celebrate its difficulty and plenty of others bounce off it. That split feels healthy. A sequel to Hollow Knight was never going to be easy, and Team Cherry did not pretend otherwise.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Inherited the Clown Crown

If any game rivaled Silksong for the longest gap between announcement and release, it was Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Nintendo first revealed it at its E3 2017 press conference, two years before Silksong's announcement. At the time, the game was literally just a logo. Nintendo said Bandai Namco's studios in Japan and Singapore would develop it, but that plan did not hold. In 2019, Nintendo restarted development because the initial version failed to meet internal expectations. Retro Studios, the original Metroid Prime team, took over. Retro had been working on an unannounced Switch platformer called Harmony, but that project was canceled to prioritize Metroid Prime 4.

For years, Metroid Prime 4 existed as a promise and a punchline. I remember watching fans ask for a trailer at every Direct, only to get another round of clown memes. Nintendo did not release a single trailer until June 2024. That reveal confirmed a 2025 release window for the Nintendo Switch. Later, Nintendo announced a Nintendo Switch 2 version with enhanced visuals and smoother frame rates. Even after multiple showings, Nintendo stayed oddly quiet about the exact release date, which made me nervous. I had already seen Silksong slip through enough windows to fear another delay into early 2026.

What 2026 Looks Like Now

By 2026, the waiting game is finally over. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has launched as a Nintendo exclusive for Switch and Switch 2, and the enhanced version on the newer hardware delivers the smoother frame rates and cleaner visuals Nintendo promised. I have spent time with both games now, and the contrast is fascinating. Silksong is a handcrafted, punishing 2D labyrinth from a small team. Metroid Prime 4 is a first-person sci-fi adventure from a veteran studio that had to rebuild its project from scratch. Both took years to reach players, but they took very different roads.

The clown memes are dead now. I do not miss the uncertainty, but I do miss the shared absurdity a little. There was something oddly bonding about waiting for a game that felt like it might never arrive. Silksong and Metroid Prime 4 both turned that waiting into a community language. When the games finally launched, the language changed from jokes to impressions, complaints, favorite bosses, and favorite weapons.

The Real Lesson From Two Long Waits

I think the lesson is not that delays are good. They are not. Metroid Prime 4's reboot cost years and canceled another project. Silksong's silence frustrated even the most patient fans. But both cases show that a long wait does not automatically mean a bad game. It means development is messy, especially when a small team or a rebooted studio is trying to meet impossible expectations.

As a player in 2026, I am just glad I can finally talk about these games as games. Silksong earned its 95/100 OpenCritic average and its 91% Steam positivity, even if its difficulty keeps some players at arm's length. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond finally crossed the finish line and gave Switch and Switch 2 owners a new Samus adventure. The clown makeup is off. The controllers are on. And for once, the only mystery left is what Team Cherry and Retro Studios will do next.

That curiosity about what comes next tends to send me back through older catalogs, and it is easy to forget how expensive a backlog can get when every long-awaited release lands in the same window. Between Silksong, a new Samus adventure, and the steady stream of indies that fill the gaps in between, most players I know are trying to stretch a budget across far more games than they can finish. I have started being more deliberate about when I buy, waiting for the moments when prices actually drop instead of grabbing things at launch out of habit.

Lately I have been checking best game deals before committing to anything, and it has changed how I approach the hobby. Finding a discount on a title I was already curious about makes it easier to take a chance on the weirder, smaller releases that big studios would never fund, which is exactly the kind of variety that keeps this medium interesting between the blockbusters.