Like many others here, I have been wondering what would Metroid look like if it were given the Breath of the Wild treatment. Is it possible to throw out mechanics that we've all come to expect from the genre and come out as something fresh yet familiar?
I'm not saying this is how Nintendo should make Prime 4 but here are just a few possible directions the series could take if you messed with the traditional formula...
All Abilities from the start:
Classifying The Witnesses as a metroidvania might be a stretch but I think there are some parallels to be drawn. You have all the abilities from the start of the game (drawing lines) but you have to figure out the systems and mechanics in order to progress. This type of "player discovery design" is also seen in Fez with the Rosetta Stone and language puzzles. Take the fore mentioned ideas as inspiration and combine it with all of Samus' gear and there's an infinite number of ways the devs could cook up progression gating challenges.
Nonlinear (semi?) Open World:
The semi-open world design in Dark Souls 1 is a good reference point. The level design is like a 3D ant farm; complete with hidden shortcuts and sequence breaking. It also lends to the feeling of isolation more than a true open world. Yes Prime 1 had this kind of level design but what if it was even more interconnected and only gated you based on the game mechanics that you as a player learned (not solely based on suit upgrades)?
Make it hard:
BotW got this right: let the player go anywhere but ramp up the difficulty in later areas to force him/her to explore and "power up". This gives us the item collectathon that we've all come to expect but none of the power ups are actually required to complete the game.
tldr; Prime 4 is the Dark Souls of Metroid
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