When Do You Unlock the Vi-O-La Bike in Metroid Prime 4?

Once you've made it into Volt Forge in Metroid Prime 4, you'll immediately notice the Vi-O-La Bike chilling in one of the first rooms you enter.

You'll also notice that you can't ride it. Typical Metroidvania shenanagins, right?

As soon as you acquire the map, which is picked up by scanning the desk in front of the window behind the bike, your best buddy Myles will tell you to power on the facility and indicate where to go on the map. That can only mean one thing: it's time to turn on the lights and go get ourselves a motorcycle.

Our guide will cover where you need to go to turn on the power so you can acquire the Vi-O-La Bike in Metroid Prime 4.

Turning The Power On

To turn the Tower's power back on, we need to head to the Tower 1 Generator room.

As indicated by the map above, we need to work our way down the elevators. Thankfully, this is a pretty simple and easy process, as since there's no power turned on, all the robotic enemies that exist in the Tower are currently asleep.

Keep heading down the elevators and Tower until you reach the bottom of the assembly floor, eventually landing in a sunken room that you can't jump your way out of. You'll see four platforms that look like they should be moving their way up, but, since there's no power, they're stuck. Thankfully, there's something we can do about it before turning the power back on.

You'll notice a Backup Power Socket that can give these platforms temporary power. This is at the end of the lowered room with the inactive platforms. Head to the opposite side of the room from the socket, stand on the platform, and use the Control Beam to hit the socket. This will temporarily power it up, lifting the platform for you to jump out of the sunken room and continue on to the next elevator, and keep moving down the Tower.

As you move down, you'll make your way past an inactive Vi-O-La Bike assembly line, eventually making your way down to a ledge that lies above a floor with a bunch of mechanical rats scurrying around. Kill them all before you make your way through the path as indicated in the above image. Your reward is yet another elevator. Time to keep going down; mind the electricity that's charging through the floor, though. Don't worry, you're getting close.

Once you make your way through the hallway after the elevator, take a right and jump down to another assembly line floor. You'll see a tunnel that is just big enough for you to morph ball your way through; enter it and get ready to do some morph ball platforming. After finishing that, you'll end up in an open area on the ledge: we've finally arrived at the generator.

As you scan the objects, you'll notice the two antennas on the right and left sides of the generator have morph ball bomb slots. Drop some bombs inside them, and the generator will turn on, making its way further down the ledge and closer to the storm. This will also open a path down the crane for the morph ball.

Head down it and make your way to the now primed generator, dropping one last morph ball bomb into its open slot. This will turn the generator on. It's time to go back.

Making Your Way Back Up

The good news is that the Tower now has power. The bad news is that as you make your way back, you'll need to dodge lightning strikes. Thankfully, the crane has some openings on the sides that let you stay out of harm's way, so take advantage of them.

In typical Metroidvania fashion, it's time to backtrack and take advantage of everything that's now available to us. As you can expect, though, with electricity now flowing through the Tower, you'll have to deal with the occasional surge of lightning, as well as active enemies that aren't happy you're here.

For now, though, you'll return to the bottom of the bike assembly line. Scan the terminal, and then touch the hologram to activate it, turning the machines on. They'll begin to make bikes, but bad news: they're not making your bike.

Instead, you'll want to turn into a morph ball so one of the robot arms can pick you up and carry you to the above ledge, allowing you to make your way back up the Tower after some more morph ball platforming.

As you move up, you'll encounter the security drones. Take them out with missiles and get ready to use the assembly line to your advantage once again. This time, you'll need to use a Psychic Bomb and throw it into the open slot on the wall.

This will allow you to morph ball into the center machine, where a robotic arm will once again pick you up, allowing you to head back to the next awaiting elevator after dodging some lasers.

Now we're back to the room with the platforms in them and they're now working as intended.

The bad news is that they're also being hit with jolts of electricity, which means you can't chill on them for the entire time they make their way up the Tower. Thankfully, there's a solution. Just like with the generator, there will be ledges that let you hide from the electricity.

After the platforms are hit with electrical discharge, they'll move their way up. Use this as your opening to jump on the platform, but you'll want to navigate all the way to the fourth platform. Once it stops moving up, jump on the ledge in front of you. Repeat this process a second time, making your way back to the first platform, and hiding on the ledge until it's safe. Make your way up a third time, where it will take you to the doorway that will bring you to the next elevator, as you keep backtracking to the top of the Tower.

Finally, we've made it back to the top, where we'll see the Vi-O-La bike waiting for us. All that needs to be done is activate the terminal in front of the bike to obtain the VI-O-LA Suit.