UPDATE 6.30pm: Metroid Prime 4 is being developed by a new team, and not Metroid Prime trilogy developer Retro Studios.

This detail was confirmed at E3 this week in a roundtable interview attended by Eurogamer.

But Metroid Prime producer Kensuke Tanabe is still aboard and heading the project. You can find a link to our previous chat with Tanabe about the future of the Metroid Prime series just below.

ORIGINAL STORY 5.15pm: In a bombshell announcement, Nintendo has confirmed it is developing Metroid Prime 4 for Nintendo Switch.

A simple logo was teased during the company's E3 Spotlight presentation today - and nothing else.

It comes, perhaps, as something of a surprise. It has been 10 years since the release of Metroid Prime 3, and since then the series has taken various other guises.

But after last year's panned Metroid Prime: Federation Force spin-off, Nintendo appears to have taken fan feedback on board and announced the game many thought might never be made.

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That said, there have been hints at the project previously. Federation Force ended with a nod to a potential Metroid Prime 4 storyline.

A fourth Metroid Prime has also been on the cards for a long time. Way back at E3 2015, Metroid Prime series boss Kensuke Tanabe told me it was bounty hunter Sylux's ship that appeared in the post-credits scene for Metroid Prime 3, chasing series heroine Samus Aran, and that he would like to feature the character of Sylux more fully in a future game.

"Personally I'd like to create a story centring around Sylux and Samus," Tanabe told Eurogamer. "We've done a story based on the Hunters, and this time around we're doing a story on the Galactic Federation. I would like to cross the two over in the future. And of course see a little more of Samus."

At the same time, Tanabe also said the next numbered Metroid Prime game would skip Wii U and arrive on Nintendo's next console, then code-named NX.

It only took a couple more E3s... but it's finally happening.