I Will Now Proceed to Hype About Metroid Dread

Fuck. Yes.

Metroid Dread is the absolute standout of E3 2021 to me. That’s not a big accomplishment, really; I’m so exhausted and cynical of hype culture in general and know the media side of things enough that I’m quick to mitigate any excitement at these reveals. The reality is always unlikely to match the showreel, assuming there’s even anything sincere to show in the first place. So couple that attitude with a fairly weak year of reveals in the wake of COVID’s disruptions, and you get a lacklustre show in general.

Then along comes Nintendo to save E3.. right after they crack down obsessively on fan games and emulation while offering no viable alternatives, force community event cancellations, and bar any re-streams or reactions to their Direct on Twitch. Let’s not forget that corporations aren’t our friends, people. But you could be forgiven for thinking it for a brief minute when early into the presentation, Metroid Dread’s trailer is revealed.

I’m immediately engaged and excited, and that excitement continues to burn even after days have passed and multiple trailer viewings have occurred. Those in the know about Metroid seem to feel similarly. However, there’s a good amount of sentiment that goes something like:

And I can’t exactly fault anyone for that. For a series that is older than me, there haven’t exactly been that many Metroid games. As was stated in the direct, Metroid Dread is the first non-remake 2D game in 19 years, that being 2002’s Metroid Fusion. But even if you count the remakes and 3D games, it’s a fairly sparse series for an almost 35 year old franchise.

There have been 14 Metroid games total. Two are spinoffs and can be removed from the list (Federation Force and Pinball). Two more are remakes (Zero Mission and Samus Returns). Of the remaining 10, one of them is Other M, which is a case study in character assassination and poor writing (even if the gameplay is tolerable).

So yeah, slim pickings.

Even when the Metroid franchise is being well received, it’s not uncommon for it to just disappear for a half-decade or more at a time. The last fully original and “good” Metroid game was 2007’s Metroid Prime 3.

Quick shoutouts to Project AM2R for being fantastic though. It’s good enough to qualify as being in the Metroid discussion despite it being an unofficial fan game. Go play it if you haven’t; the official page was taken down by Nintendo C&D, but the internet never forgets.

It’s not an easy thing to keep the faith as a series fan, but to me, Metroid is worth it. I played and replayed Metroid Fusion a ton during my high school years. I didn’t exactly speedrun it, but I did get good enough to beat the timer for the best ending with 100% items. I enjoyed the Metroid Prime trilogy to varying degrees, had fun with my dabbling of Hunters, and would frequently revisit Zero Mission alongside Fusion. 

And all of this is without even going into Super Metroid. I can’t understate how fantastic Super Metroid is as a game to this day. It’s a master class in atmosphere and sound design, especially for the era. The level design and mechanics are solid and it’s an amazing game to play no matter how many times I revisit it. It doesn’t personally have as much impact on my formative years as Fusion did, but there’s no denying how excellent Super Metroid is, and it’s probably the first game I’d return to nowadays. It’s also gotten a bunch of interesting speed running activity lately, so that’s neat.

There’s a big pedigree for Metroid Dread to live up to, but so far I have quite a bit of faith in MercurySteam’s ability to deliver it. I really enjoyed their take on Samus Returns, which I’ve written about in the past at length. Multiple times, in fact. It was far from the best Metroid game, and was hamstrung by being faithful to the level design of 1991’s Metroid 2, but it made me hopeful for the future of Metroid nonetheless. 

There’s a lot to unpack from the Dread trailer that makes me comfortable about its direction though.

First things first: MercurySteam. These guys approached Nintendo with a prototype for a Metroid Fusion remake. Nintendo were impressed enough to take them on, but had them remake Metroid 2 instead since it was in far more need of it. Metroid Dread, on the other hand, has already highlighted the most memorable part of Fusion in a new reimagining.

SA-X was terrifying in Metroid Fusion. Early on in the game, while you’re still depowered and at low strength, you see a cutscene of a blank-eyed Samus clone in full power suit using the Screw Attack and Super Missiles; powers you’ve yet to regain. It doesn’t run (at first), it just walks, and the cold clank of its boots on the floor will elicit fear in the player for multiple encounters afterwards. You can’t fight this, you can only run and hide.

Metroid Dread’s first showcase is a sinister robotic enemy that is impervious to your general weapons and immediately forces Samus to run. It chases you down with twisting and inhuman movements, contorting itself for maximum mobility in unsettling ways. There’s a brief moment of Samus camouflaging herself to avoid detection, and a later shot of a damaged version of the robot rearing up before you. This E.M.M.I. is hunting you, and it’s likely to be a constant and recurring threat. It looks amazing, it sounds amazing, and it’s so far highlighting MercurySteam’s love and understanding of Metroid Fusion. Good sign.

The most encouraging sign is more subtle, though. I spotted it on my first trailer viewing and instantly felt at ease having done so, but I’m not sure how many others did. For that, let’s go back to the first 30 seconds of Super Metroid and its intro screen.

Sound design and music is at the forefront of what makes Super Metroid’s atmosphere so palpable. You could just leave that video running in the background and listen for 10 minutes, and you’d probably have a good sense of what’s going on. The notes and sounds here are now iconic to the series, and Metroid Dread’s trailer has many of them at just the right moments. That’s nice, but it’s not the detail I’m looking at.

In the first 30 seconds of Super Metroid, the words “Metroid 3” are typed out on the screen. Simple, effective, and almost strange in that the game is never referred to as that again. It’s always Super Metroid. Well, that same detail is used by Metroid Dread, referring to itself in the first 10 seconds as “Metroid 5” in much the same manner. It highlights the fact that yes, this is the next progression in the Metroid timeline (that has been locked since Metroid Fusion, with all other games occurring before it), and they’ve observed and taken that exact same little innocuous detail from Super Metroid to announce it.

The fact that MercurySteam has made a nod and homage to this tiny but distinct detail about Super Metroid tells me volumes about Metroid Dread. It makes me feel like they’ve done their due diligence in looking at why the series has remained so iconic and relevant despite the many periods of inactivity. I certainly hope that they do lean into more aspects of Super Metroid. If you can approach the level of sound design and atmosphere that Super did in order to really sell that sense of isolation and… well, dread? Then Metroid Dread will be one to remember.

Yes, much of the remaining trailer for Dread leans more into Samus Returns and Metroid Fusion territory, and that’s totally fine. The return of the melee parry ability is a welcome one, provided they don’t lean so heavily into it that it becomes the only worthwhile way to fight most enemies. Having a frequently recurring enemy could eventually lead to tedium, as it did with the repeated Metroid hunts in Samus Returns. But a new and original game is allowed to be less confined than one adhering to the design of a 1991 title.

So yes. Despite my general sentiment of not hyping and judging games as they are when they release, not when the marketing reel insists I do? I nonetheless can’t help but feel genuinely excited for Metroid Dread. I’m still not entirely convinced that it’s even real, and that we’re getting an original 2D Metroid game after so long. Metroid Prime 4 might be a way off, but Metroid is not going to be dormant until then, and it pleases me greatly.

There’s still plenty that could go wrong. Dread could be a mess, or it could underperform in all sorts of ways. But frankly, knowing that MercurySteam specifically gets to carry on with the franchise like this gives me the same sense of comfort that I got knowing that Larian were doing Baldur’s Gate 3. There’s so many ways it could go wrong, but these are the guys I’d most want to do it.

Well, unless they got Moon Studios to do it. But Moon Studios is better off doing what they are with their own style and vision instead of trying to mould it to Metroid. Man, Ori and the Will of the Wisps was good.

Anyway. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on Metroid Dread come October. I suspect I’ll be doing a replay of Metroid Fusion and Super Metroid at some point before that just to get into the mood and have fresh comparisons on hand. Hell, I owe Project AM2R and Samus Returns a revisit as well. We shall see!

This one was a spur of the moment piece that I wrote on a whim after nerding out about Metroid Dread stuff to friends in Discord. Still, it was enough momentum to churn out this relatively short and lightly edited piece basically on the spot. At the moment I’ve got like six or seven articles in various stages of completion and I’ve been kind of in a slump getting them to work. Just writing about a thing I enjoy that means something to me should hopefully oil the gears a little. I’m actually working on a little series of posts to that end as well, of which I’ll likely talk about Metroid Fusion in greater depth for soon. Until next time!