Metroid Prime 4 was briefly spotted on Amazon's store page allowing users to pre-order for the low price of $59.99, but the listing has already been removed.
The listing was spotted earlier today by Twitter user Wario64 (with thanks to GamesRadar). Although it certainly seemed legit, it didn't last very long. Amazon removed the listing after being live for only a few hours. It's certain that some customers were able to get a few pre-orders in, but if the response to Wario64's tweet is any indication, they could be in for a long wait.
Metroid Prime 4 was announced way back at E3 2017. Initially being developed by Bandai Namco's Singapore studio, Nintendo canned the entire game after saying it was dissatisfied with the studio's progress. It then started over with Retro Studios, the makers of the initial Prime trilogy. Retro hired new staff throughout 2020 and received a half-million dollar investment from Nintendo to make Metroid Prime 4, but since then, we've heard nothing but rumors.
Fans are speculating that today's Nintendo Direct presentation could headline with news of Metroid Prime 4, up to and including a release date. It would make sense given Amazon's brief pre-order leak, but we'll have to wait for the Direct to find out for sure. We could just as easily get a Metroid Prime remaster as we do Metroid Prime 4, which is also rumored to be in development according to games journalist Jeff Grubb. That rumor didn't come true for 2022, but perhaps 2023 will be the year.
In other Metroid news, the same leaker that broke the news of Metroid Dread is back with more information about a new game in development from Dread developer MecurySteam. According to NWeedle, a new 2D Metroid game is coming from MercurySteam sometime in 2025. NWeedle was right about Dread, so many believe they'll be right about this new game too.