Topic: Why Ridley wasn't in Metroid Dread?

I kind of expected Ridley to appear in Metroid Dread when I was playing through the game first time...but he didn't. Kraid did return on the other hand, but that WASN'T my expectation as well otherwise. Odd... Wonder if others feel the same on this? I do like Ridley very much, and for his dragon-like appearance. I do know Ridley was also absent from Metroid II: Return of Samus (which I played and realised the idea myself) and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (which I have NOT played but have heard about the noting online that Ridley isn't here either), of course.

@AshleyGamer1995 I've never played a Metroid game for more than an hour so I'm not entirely sure about the whole lore of the series but isn't Ridley canonically dead in the 2D series by the time of Dread? That's just what I've heard at least though.

I will say I was completely expecting Ridley to be one of the final bosses. However, I’m fine with the game making mostly new bosses and just having “Kraid” return. It is interesting, though, how he’s not even remotely referenced in-game. He’s in a couple of the postgame drawings but that’s about it.

@Fizza He technically got killed for sure in Super Metroid, but he’s died and revived and taken new forms a ton of times before.

Oh OK, so that explains it. True that not all villains and sub foes in game history come back every time.

We’ve made him explode on a few different occasions, destroyed his cyborg parts AND the robot version of himself, killed off his clone, destroyed the mummified remains of the clone, and exterminated the X parasites posing as him.

I think he deserves a vacation.

@Eel Maybe Samus is Ridley... Something to think about

Maybe they felt bad about how unnecessarily he was added to Samus Returns and wanted to make up for a pointless use of Ridley. Kraid showing up is also seemingly completely random but its at least someone that isn't in the vast majority of the series being added purely out of pre-established popularity rather than doing anything new (that's what Mario games are for).

Though it is funny that the first post-Smash Ultimate Metroid has no Ridley.

He was on vacation.

...Also yeah I kinda figured I'd be fighting some clone/X version of him or whatever. lol

I mean, it happened in Fusion. But yeah, there are some games where he never shows up, like in Prime 2.

Ridley is canonically dead before Metroid Dread. That occurred in Super Metroid.

Any other return since then (Prime Trilogy is set before Metroid 2), was a clone of some kind. There are only so many ways you can pull that approach without it becoming predictable and arbitrary.

A lot of people verbally complained that his appearance felt very forced in Samus Returns, a retelling of a story he was never a part of. GIven Mercury Steam mentioned they took a lot of criticism in Samus Returns to heart, they probably figured it would be more interesting to give more attention to another villain instead.

Uh... I even wonder if Ridley might come back, even if it's just a remake of Super Metroid? Yeah, I liked that 2D Metroid game, considering it was one of the SNES's finest entries. It should even have the free-aiming and parrying moves carried over from Samus Returns and Dread, and have Boss Rush. Still nothing more revealed about a Metroid Prime 4 yet.

Edit: Wait, already realised Ridley is dead apparently. My mistake. XD

Next up: AI Ridley takes control of a ship and becomes a computer virus.

I mean...when you think about it, something like this KINDA happened in Other M with Mother Brain, right? xD

Ridley is killed in action by Samus in the depths of Norfair during the events of Super Metroid. He is cloned by the Galactic Federation from samples "cleaned" off of Samus's Power Suit near the start of Other M and is killed in that same game by a Queen Metroid. The corpse of that clone is then taken to the B.S.L. where it is reanimated by the X-Parasites, and later the X-Parasites on the B.S.L. are destroyed by Samus when she directed the B.S.L. station into SR388. Ridley is dead and his clone is dead well before the events of Metroid Dread.

If there's any sign of him in a post-Fusion game, it should be as an extra boss in a Boss Rush mode as a non-canonical appearance. I would've liked to have seen Ridley in Metroid Dread as an extra boss for the finale of Dread Rush to make having to go through Dread Mode more worth the effort.

Metroid Prime 4 should occur before the events of Metroid: Samus Returns, a time when Ridley is actually alive and can certainly make an appearance. Both Ridley, leading Space Pirates, and Samus could go after Sylux and the stolen Metroid.

He got wreckt.
His cybernetically augmented carcass got smashed.
His rebuilt body was destroyed.
His clone got drained dry by a Metroid.
His X-resurrected clone husk got killed by Samus and got blown up.
He's deader than dead. He is no more, he has ceased to be. He has expired. He has passed on. He has been sent to his maker. His life functions have been repeatedly terminated. He has shuffled off the mortal coil. He's atomized. He is an ex-space pirate.

Honestly? For me, it was refreshing. Besides, if you look at the story of all the Metroid games, Ridley died like 10 times or something. He will be back.

I was surprised and disappointed not to see him in Dread. I genuinely thought he would show up in the endgame. For me, his appearance in SR did make sense, but I can see why people might have seen it as shoehorning him in where he doesn't belong.

I'm guessing he'll be back in MP4, particularly if that's set in the same gap as the original Prime trilogy. So, if we're lucky, we might get to see him in the next two decades or so.