Metroid Dread How To Get The Grapple Beam And Morph Ball Bomb Early
Image: Nintendo Life

Sequence-breaking — when you collect an item or enter an area before the designers of the game intented you to on a 'normal' playthrough — is a time-honoured tradition in the Metroid game fan community, and it's something that's possible in Metroid Dread, too.

It's possible to beat Kraid in an amusing alternate manner by shooting yourself into his belly from a Morph Ball launcher during the second phase of that fight. In order to do this you're going to need to have acquired the Morph Ball Bomb early, so let's take a quick look at how to pull off this relatively simple bit of sequence-breaking.

How To Acquire The Grapple Beam And Morph Ball Bomb Early

First off, before we start, you're going to need to have both the Varia Suit and the Wide Beam to succeed here, both of which you acquire very early on in the game. Next, in order to reach the Morph Ball Bomb itself, we'll also need to go grab the Grapple Beam early too, so let's start there.

Getting the Grapple Beam Early

Once you've attained the Varia Suit, instead of heading off to Cataris to face off against Kraid in the usual manner, we're going to leave him to stew for a little and make our way to Dairon. Once there we're going to want to enter a heated area in order to break open the entrance to a secret elevator to Artaria. In order to do this we need to head down to the Total Recharge Station, as shown in our first map, and from here make our way down to the left, break some beam blocks, drop down and head right into the heated area in question.

Once in this hot room we want to make our way to the bottom right and take out the beam block, as shown in our pictures, in order to make our way through a door that's hidden by an explosive wall and then into a long room with a bit of tricky jumping to do.

Now, as illustrated in the pics below, you need to make your way from the platform just inside the door to the tunnel above that runs the length of this room, then jump down the other side to safety. Both of these manoeuvres are tough and will take a little practice. In order to first get up into the tunnel you need to slide under the gap at the platform, wall-jump to your immediate left, then spin up and grab the ledge to your right. If you fall go left through the lava onto the platform and shoot the beam blocks to get up and try again.

On the other side of the tunnel you're now going to need to perform a slide and immediately jump in order to catch the ledge that brings you to safety and it's another tricky manoeuvre so keep practicing until you get it down. Once you've succeeded here you'll be able to enter a door on the right and proceed to unlock an elevator down to Artaris.

We're gonna ride the elevator down to Artaris now and, once there, exit the room to the right and drop down to the very bottom of the shaft there. Take the door to your right then drop down to the floor and take another door on the right and you've reached the statue room containing the Grapple Beam. Well done! Now, let's retrace our steps and head back to Dairon to get the next piece of the puzzle.

Getting The Morph Ball Bomb Early

Once back on Dairon we want to make our way back to through the hot room to the lower Network Station, save our game and head to the nearby E.M.M.I zone shown in our maps below. We're gonna enter the E.M.M.I area from the bottom right and exit it at the top left, we've placed markers at these points in our pics below.

Once through the door at the top we're going to utilise our newly acquired Grapple Beam to remove the block in our way and then it's a straight shot upwards to the room containing our Morph Ball Bomb.

However! Before you can get your hands on it, you're gonna need to power up this area as everything is currently shut down and in darkness. Luckily the power panel is very nearby. Simply follow the path round to the left through the Map Room that we've indicated in our maps below to make it to the generator, turn it on and then exit through the generator room to the right and up once again to a now fully-functioning area and the Morph Ball Bomb is yours.

Congratulations, you can now head off and fire yourself into Kraid's belly after successfully sequence-breaking this early part of Metroid Dread!


This guide is part of our Metroid Dread walkthrough and guide series, which includes all ability locations, all missile tank locations, all energy tank locations, all energy parts, all suit upgrades, all power bomb tanks, plus every compatible amiibo unlock, E.M.M.I. and boss battle tips, and other helpful tips to help you get through the game and get those post-game unlocks.