Metroid Dread (2021)
The Hunter resurgent…
The return of Samus Aran in the first new mainline Metroid entry since 2002 – and first on a home, TV-playable console since 1994 – manages to stand with the best, most legendary entries in the beloved series.
Developed by MercurySteam, Nintendo EPD
Published by Nintendo
Released on Nintendo Switch
While many of my gaming friends from the time I was a kid up through now often hang their hats on Nintendo franchises like Super Mario or The Legend of Zelda, I always had to be the weird kid. Most people preferred Star Wars; I preferred Star Trek. Most preferred Spider-Man; give me Superman.
Most preferred Mario or Zelda; I always felt most engaged in Metroid.
Dedication to the Metroid franchise has not always been the easiest fandom to which to devote oneself. Before this year, there were only four “mainline” entries in the series, with two of those games having been remade for more modern iterations of Nintendo hardware, and the main series is arguably not as popular as the first-person Metroid Prime series that began in 2002 on the GameCube.
Nintendo’s dedication to the IP has also been lacking. When the series hit its 25- and 30-year anniversaries, there was no fanfare to be found from the owners, something very much unlike the practices which defined Mario and Zelda. Being a Metroid fan – and even more specifically, a fan who actually cares about the series’ lore and overarching story – has been difficult. Watching E3 after E3 hoping for some kind of glimpse at the future of the series has been an exercise in continual futility.
That is, until very recently.
Metroid Dread – the fifth entry in the mainline series and the 12th entry in the franchise overall (not counting Metroid Prime Pinball) – has been in various stages of development hell for many years going back to as early as 2005, when it was initially conceived as a title for the Nintendo DS. However, franchise producer Yoshio Sakamoto later claimed that the platform’s technology was not sufficient to fulfill his vision for what Dread should be. The title was continually pushed until it was believed dead by most observers.
Samus faces her destiny, and a series of nearly-indestructible mechanical monsters to give full credence to the title of Metroid Dread.
In 2017, however, Spanish studio MercurySteam developed a remake for the 1991 Game Boy title Metroid II: Return of Samus and created a 2.5D sidescrolling exploration platformer from that basis. Originally conceived as a remake of 2002’s Metroid Fusion on the Game Boy Advance – the last original entry in the main 2D-based Metroid series – Sakamoto instead encouraged the studio to remake Metroid II to reconnect gamers, and the core series audience with the story beats pre-dating the legendary 1994 Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) game Super Metroid, which for many defines the series’ core attributes.
The resulting game, Metroid: Samus Returns for the Nintendo 3DS, was a success and in the development team, Sakamoto says he saw a new chance to bring Dread to life. The result is that 2021’s Metroid Dread is the first mainline Metroid game released on a home console since Super Metroid. Every 2D entry between Fusion and Samus Returns was initially restricted to handheld play on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo 3DS.
Naturally, this has led to a great deal of expectation on the new game to deliver on both the story-driven and mechanical fronts. Thankfully, like most previous entries in the series, Metroid Dread returns series protagonist Samus Aran to a level of glory perhaps not seen since the heyday of the Prime trilogy, maybe even surpassing that lofty standard to recall the timelessness of Super Metroid.
Series History
To understand the story of Dread, it’s necessary to understand the core underpinnings of the series and how the titular species feeds into the themes of the overarching narrative. Metroids are genetically engineered predators created by a wise race called the Chozo, designed to serve as predators for a dangerous and virulent parasite simply called “X.” When X parasites overran a Chozo planet called SR388, the race engineered the Metroids to serve as the ultimate predator, draining the life force from their prey and effectively killing a significant number of the parasites.
However, the Metroids themselves soon became a more potent threat. With a faction of “Space Pirates” learning of the existence of the Metroid race, they sought to capture and control the species and use it as an ultimate weapon in a campaign against the galaxy’s governing authority, the Galactic Federation. Learning of the Space Pirate plot to use the Metroids in their campaign, the Federation hires bounty hunter Samus Aran – herself a surrogate daughter of the Chozo having been raised by them after Space Pirates murdered her family and fellow colonists when she was a child – to undermine the pirates and, eventually, exterminate the entire Metroid species.
The beginning of the game helpfully recaps the events of the first four entries in the main series, including this modernized depiction of Samus awakening in her titular “Fusion suit” at the beginning of 2002’s Metroid Fusion. That game was the last original entry in the series released prior to Dread.
The events of the original Metroid (and its GBA remake Metroid: Zero Mission), Metroid II (and its 3DS remake Samus Returns) and Super Metroid all primarily deal with Samus’ own campaign against the Space Pirates and her systematic extermination of the Metroid species on SR388. She faces Space Pirate leaders Mother Brain, Kraid and their general Ridley, and when faced with the prospect of ending the Metroid species after coming upon a baby hatchling, she instead shows mercy. The baby itself imprints onto Samus, seeing the hunter as its mother.
When Ridley kidnaps the baby, Samus pursues the Space Pirates to planet Zebes and sees that they have refortified their forces. Laying waste to the Pirates once more, Samus confronts Mother Brain one final time. When nearly defeated, the baby sacrifices its life to save and empower Samus ending with the destruction of the planet, the Space Pirates, and the final extinction of the Metroid species.
However, in Metroid Fusion, Samus is infected by the X parasite, which roams more freely on SR388 now that their primary predator is gone. Federation scientists synthesize a vaccine from samples taken from the Metroid hatchling to arrest the progress of the X, altering Samus’ DNA and effectively turning her into the final remaining predator of the X parasite. Metroid Fusion ends with the destruction of SR388, the apparent decimation of the X species, and Samus now being part Metroid herself.
Design and Story
Taking place sometime shortly after the events of Metroid Fusion, evidence surfaces of an X parasite infection on the surface of a planet with the designation ZDR. To determine the veracity of the recording of X sent to them, the Federation dispatched a series of 7 powerful mechs known as Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifiers, or “E.M.M.I.s” to recover genetic samples from the parasites to determine if they were indeed genuine. However, after losing contact with them, Samus is dispatched by the Federation to ZDR to determine why that contact was lost and whether or not X were present on the planet.
When she arrives, Samus is attacked by a powerful assailant who appears to be one of the Chozo, the first time you encounter a live member of the species in the series. After a devastating attack from the warrior leaves Samus’ suit severely diminished, Samus begins exploring ZDR to find answers to the identity of her attacker, the whereabouts of any X on the surface of the planet, and the status of the E.M.M.I. units that stopped transmitting to the Federation.
It doesn’t take long for Samus to come face-to-face with an E.M.M.I., which has been reprogrammed to attack Samus on sight, extract her DNA and kill her with rapidity. The unstoppable nature of the E.M.M.I. informs the titular feeling that the title promises: dread threatens every major area of the map they explore, and survival is about staying one step ahead of the unstoppable robots if Samus has any hope of uncovering any of the mysteries locked inside of ZDR’s caverns.
The melee counter from Samus Returns returns in Dread, refined and feeling as sharp and crunchy as ever.
The story is an effective follow-up to where we last saw Samus in Metroid Fusion and goes out of its way to make a series of significant developments for her based both on the stories of previous games, as well as the relatively major transformations – both physical and genetic – that we witnessed Samus go through in Fusion itself. Dread is a game that is very blatant in communicating its place as the continuation of the core Metroid series. Still, for those who pay attention to the details of the complex narrative and character-based story that has been built over the course of the series, there will undoubtedly be shocks and surprises along the way.
While Yoshio Sakamoto has called this a “conclusion” to the story which began in the original game, after absorbing it in its entirety, that may or may not be accurate. While there is seemingly a chapter closed here in terms of Samus’ interactions with the Metroid species, suffice it to say that there are components of this story that also feel like a whole new beginning. Indeed, the very meaning of the series title itself could be reoriented in a whole new direction based on how Dread ends, which is exciting to consider when thinking about a potential Metroid 6.
Regarding the game’s design philosophy, it very much feels like developer MercurySteam honed its initial effort, as seen on 3DS with Samus Returns. The art style used by Dread is naturally sharper and more well-defined owing to the more powerful Switch hardware, but the team also seems to have developed more confidence in adding new visual elements to the language of the series as opposed to simply remixing or re-interpreting what we’ve seen before.
Samus’ basic Power Suit gets an attractive redesign in Metroid Dread, subtley recalling her Fusion transformation but looking deceptively traditional in its physical construction.
Environments across the surface of ZDR are pretty varied, though depending on the area you’re currently exploring sometimes they can run together. However, the move to more powerful hardware has also brought more dynamic backgrounds, with indigenous creatures moving in and out of the visible frame and environmental hazards having significantly more visual flair than we saw in the previous 3DS game.
It goes without saying that compared to the early-to-mid 2000s games like Fusion and Zero Mission, Dread represents a giant leap ahead in terms of how the game is rendered. While glimpsed brilliantly in Samus Returns, the ability for the Switch to display full 3D environments with dynamic camera angles makes the action in Dread far more kinetic than we’ve seen in the entirety of the 2D series thus far, which also has the added benefit of enhancing the coherency of story and character moments instead of relying on relatively static pixel art.
All in all, in terms of its story and design elements, Dread is a fantastic experience and a more-than-worthy continuation of the saga all about Samus Aran, the Metroid species, the Chozo, and the X parasites.
Gameplay
For a series that has an entire genre partially named after it, Metroid has not been doing very much to drive forward the progression and evolution of the so-called “Metroidvania” genre, a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania. However, as someone who is just as enamored with the world and lore of the Metroid series as I am with the genre’s conventions, I actually tend to avoid most Metroidvanias unless they’re actual Metroid games.
Naturally, this might affect my perspectives on what constitutes advancements in the genre. Still, in terms of what this game aims to do, creative use of genre tropes and a satisfying level of difficulty all combine into a game that feels stiff but just malleable enough to be affected by slight developments in a player’s skill.
Metroid has always been a series designed around the concept of open-ended exploration and ability-based progression. While there is a creative conceit that will ensure Samus will always lose the majority of her abilities requiring the player to scour a map to find them again, the games in this series have all progressively developed that concept in ways that feel timely based on their respective platforms and rewarding when particular abilities are received.
The primary source of the game’s sense of dread comes from the tense E.M.M.I. encounters, but when it becomes clear how to defeat them, the resulting confrontations lead to some of the most thrilling moments in the game.
The one significant way that Dread seems to deviate from the established formula in terms of Samus’ abilities is in, arguably, her most recognizable one: the morph ball. Usually, this is one of the first upgrades that a player will find during an initial playthrough, but it doesn’t appear until far later in the story. When encountering areas that can only be traversed using it, it adds a degree of frustration around the idea that you haven’t found it yet.
This increases the feeling of reward when it’s ultimately found and makes backtracking those segments more satisfying as a result. In terms of other abilities, Dread follows the same basic template as Fusion in terms of most of the core abilities (for instance, the ice beam is unaccounted for here, with the freezing function instead being added to missiles as was the case in Fusion). There are some excellent new abilities, though.
First of all, one of the elements that add to Samus’ fluid mobility in Dread is a slide move she has. It makes running from an E.M.M.I. more dynamic and might even allow the player to get underneath some short height obstacles without the morph ball, but it also just adds to the general sense of speed Samus has in Dread when compared to previous entries.
There are also some great new stealth-based abilities owing to the necessity to slink around E.M.M.I.-infested areas undetected. The “flash shift” allows you to move in any direction in a short burst of super speed, aiding the ability to get around certain areas and serving as a massive boon to combating faster bosses and enemies. Equally valuable in the early going of the game is the “phantom cloak,” allowing Samus to become invisible to an E.M.M.I.’s visual sensors, aiding her attempts to steer clear of the deadly machines or regroup after a tense encounter.
Certain door types in the game also might require the player to flash shift through quickly before they close or to use the phantom cloak to avoid being shut out upon detection. Everything combines into creative application of the new abilities, particularly helpful in the period of the game before the player obtains the Varia and Gravity Suits.
There isn’t an abundance of new weapons to be found in Dread outside of the “storm missile,” a lock-on mechanic that allows the player to fire five simultaneous missiles either at designated doors or at enemies. The storm missile can be a significant difference-maker in certain boss and mini-boss encounters, having a high damage output and adding to the dynamism of some battles.
You might think that relying on the new phantom cloak in each successive E.M.M.I. encounter would grow tiresome, but each instance of successfully avoiding capture manages to stay appropriately tense throughout the duration of the game.
Speaking of battles, the stiffest part of the game – by a mile – is the boss fights. While some are reasonably straightforward (including one based on an encounter Samus may have had before), the Chozo soldiers and robots deployed by Samus’ initial Chozo attacker are fast, powerful and deadly. Certain creature bosses are also extremely quick and punishing if they manage to land a hit on you, and often even the earliest battles may seem insurmountable on a first or second attempt. The beautiful thing about the boss difficulty curve in Metroid Dread is that there are very clear progression and pattern memorization opportunities for every major enemy encounter.
It likely won’t be long before you feel yourself growing stronger during each fight, maturing to a point where a boss that at first seemed impossible to beat won’t even be able to touch you at the end. Because of that, Metroid Dread might have the best boss fights in the entire series. It’s not that the concept of pattern recognition in Metroid bosses is a new idea per se, just that it feels impeccably crafted and perfected in this game. It enhances a feeling of accomplishment and emphasizes the real greatness of the design of these encounters.
These elements combine into a gameplay experience that feels sharp as a tack, smooth as butter, and a delightful way to spend extended periods of play.
Overall
We’ve waited a long time to see how Samus Aran’s story continues after the events of Metroid Fusion, and the newest entry in the mainline series does not disappoint. Metroid Dread is a culmination of many of the design and gameplay philosophies either explored or innovated by its predecessors and serves as a creatively satisfying chapter in the saga of the main character.
Its motion is fluid, its boss fights are dynamic and engaging, and its traversal and exploration are second-to-none. While history will be the ultimate judge in deciding whether Dread has met or surpassed the genre- and series-defining acumen of a game like Super Metroid, the fact that Dread is even anywhere near a legitimate contender in such a discussion counts as nothing less than a massive achievement for the series.
Metroid Dread is an achievement for Nintendo, MercurySteam, Sakamoto-san, and fans of this long-neglected series. It gets nothing but the highest recommendation from this player.