Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.
The title Metroid Dread has existed in the back of my mind for well over a decade. It was a game that was discussed about with mystery. It was a game that was apparently in development after Fusion, but was never completed. For the longest time, this was pretty much all we had:
For me, it took on almost a mythic quality. An entry in a long line of lost work. Unfinished, like Gogol’s Dead Souls, Marx’s Das Kapital, or Miura’s Berzerk. Like Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, a piece interrupted by some unknown person from Porlock. But not just unfinished, but also missing, completely hidden and unknown, like a lost Shakespeare play. Nintendo is notoriously secretive, so little was known about the project. I have a fondness for unfinished games in my heart. A dramatic trailer from an E3 long ago, for a game that would have never lived up to expectations, has a kind of mystery and curiosity to it that never quite goes away. But Dread had even less than that. All we really had was a name. Dread. What does it mean? What was it about? What would it have been like?
Now, almost 20 years later, Metroid Dread is… actually coming out? It’s billed as Metroid 5, and apparently is going to wrap up the arc of games that goes from Metroid all the way to Metroid Fusion. Yoshio Sakamoto, one of the creators of Metroid, explains a bit about what stopped the original game from getting made in a video. He also explains a lot of the core ideas behind the game. There was also a Treehouse segment showing off more unbroken gameplay. It’s being worked on by Nintendo EPD and Mercury Steam, the team that made Metroid: Samus Returns, the official remake of Metroid 2, a game with which it seems to have quite a few similarities. A major feature is also the E.M.M.I., a dangerous robot that will hunt Samus down.
For me, I’m sure Metroid Dread will be pretty good, and I’ll probably like it. I’m skeptical about a few of the things I’m seeing. But my main reason for being excited is that I’m elated to see Nintendo actually putting money behind this series again. It’s deeply heartening.
Sakamoto said that they felt like their original plans for the game didn’t feel possible with the technology available at the time. I’m curious what made that the case, because I don’t feel particularly like what we’re seeing wouldn’t have worked on the DS
I don’t really love horror games and the whole “We’re chasing you with some kind of hunter-killer looking thing” seems like it’s straight out of Alien but
I would like to get down with a mainline Metroid
I am quite fond of my Switch and
I feel like Nintendo wouldn’t put a date on it if they didn’t feel like they could make it and I can’t say the same of the rest of the things currently slated for this fall
It’s really wild that the first rumors about this title started circulating pretty much half of my life ago, I remember being so excited about it and discussing them with friends on ICQ or MSN messenger or something.
I gotta say I’m a bit apprehensive/curious about all this supposed lore that the Treehouse folks mentioned during the livestream but we’ll see. Personally, I couldn’t bring myself to finish Other M but Adam’s presence in Fusion didn’t bother me as much (at least back in the day) so I wonder how they took the criticisms of how they handled Samus’ character and their relationship in these two games into consideration, if at all.
On a totally random note, EMMI kinda reminded me of the lizard creatures in Rain World, especially when it would chase Samus around all those narrow crawl spaces.
I’m hoping what they mean by lore is more like the lore we see in the Prime games (world-building, etc). Metroid for sure has always been story light and focused on environmental storytelling, and like you’re saying, it was really bad when they leaned int it like in Other M, but I think some more world-building and little bits of lore is healthy for the series
also noooooo comparing rain world to metroid is going to make me explode they’re so good!!! (you are totally right and that’s why im excited about EMMI)
1000% this! Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson that in this series the fewer people talking, the better. I really like the world-building as well so hopefully this’ll be a good old solitary adventure in some interesting environments (yep I’m also trying hard not to get too excited about the killer robot lol).
I am a relatively recent Metroid fan and have only really played Super and Samus Returns for more than a few minutes, but I am a huge fan of both atmospheric sci-fi horror and the genre that these games inspired, so I’ve kind of always loved them from the outside in? In any case, I’m really looking forward to experiencing a completely new one. The way they do utter isolation has always felt so unique to me, and something about the creatures involved also just feels really creative when compared to stock game aliens or zombies or whatnot. I’m considering dedicating my summer to playing through all the ones I haven’t seen before, since I have the requisite consoles for all of them, in preparation for this.
Highly recommend trying out Fusion if you can, which would be the set-up for this game. That game does horror better than any other Metroid, IMO.
Welcome to the club, by the way! Right now is probably the first time in over what, at least a decade it’s been a “good time to be a Metroid fan.” The series is… a ride, with high highs and low lows, and some pretty dramatic transformations (don’t miss out on that pinball game!) but most of the games have been a good time. Would love to hear your journey if you decide to go through with it
I’ve been really cold on the 3d sidecrolling platformer thing, didn’t like seeing samus returns go that way at all but this actually looks pretty great.
I’m looking forward to it and also am hopeful that it will justify some retrospective metroid content on waypoint.
Having replayed them recently I can only recommend that people revisit/discover both of the gba titles.
On the topic of story I have to agree that while Other M was very messy, Fusion managed to do some very nice storytelling with good amounts of dialog. Therefore I wouldn’t particularly mind having dialog and side characters in upcoming titles, given the events of Fusion you could argue that it’s necessary since they intend to close out the story-line.
