
One major requirement of the Metroid series is for Samus Aran to lose her abilities at the beginning of every adventure. The Metroid Dread director José Luis Márquez spoke about this with Gamereactor, and he supports this, mentioning how it's absolutely "mandatory" for this particular series.
In brief, here's what he had to say - noting how "everything" at the start of the game would likely be disappointing for players (courtesy of a rough translation by Nintendo Everything):
“In the case of Metroids, yes, it has to be like that. You can’t start the game without losing things. It’s mandatory. Otherwise, I think you would be disappointed. It’s like, what? You get everything from the beginning? It can’t be!”
When Metroid Dread launched exclusively on the Switch back in 2021, we praised it - awarding it an "outstanding" 10 out of 10 stars. This particular game also happened to be MercurySteam's second Metroid title, having previously worked on Metroid: Samus Returns (released for the 3DS back in 2017). The same studio is also the same talent behind Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate.
In the same interview, Márquez also said he wasn't personally a "big fan" of "Souls elements" in Metroidvania titles and would rather not make it as difficult for players but understands why there are many who enjoy this style of gameplay.
If you're looking for some other fun facts and insights about the development of Metroid Dread, the assistant voice director Stephen Hughes recently appeared on the Kiwi Talkz podcast discussing the challenges of adapting a completely new language for the game:
What are your thoughts about this particular requirement in the Metroid series? Tell us in the comments.
[source nintendoeverything.com]
Comments 42
You know what? I feel like they could shake things up a bit but I’m always entertained so I don’t care. Keep doing what they’re doing
Funny how he says he didn't want to make the game too difficult. Maybe I'm just rubbish but, man, I really struggled with this game! To be honest, I found it ridiculously hard. One of the most stressful games that I have played in recent years. I loved it, but it made me suffer! 😆
@Ooyah You are not alone.
For the Metroid series that makes complete sense, but I think for many other games as well ... Imagine starting at max level, or with a fully powered Master Sword.
I like my games to be challenging. So the more "work" there is, the better. A game where you'd be almighty from the start is completely pointless imo.
Honestly I'd love to see a game where you start with all abalities and during the game you lose them while you progress. It would seem more fair, since your skill level in playing the game increases.
Totally agree. A key element to Metroid is getting upgrades. Wouldn’t be very fun to have every item right from the start, and that’s part of what I didn’t enjoy from BoTW and ToTK.
«Would you really want everything from the beginning?»
Why not?
Exactly why BOTW and TOTK suck
Imagine a game where you start with everything and then as time goes on you lose abilities.
The formula is what it is and it's fine but that comment shows a startling lack of design knowledge, or drive for innovation. There are plenty of ways to do interesting and new things with Metroid.
@Ironcore Honestly as a base
concept, that seems like a good starting point. In my opinion, good designers typically think along those lines.
@Poodlestargenerica That would also be an organic way to increase difficulty over time. It would be like animal well where lots of the puzzles could be solved in a variety of different ways.
@Poodlestargenerica To be fair here, they're a third-party studio, working on an existing franchise. Maybe they wanted to change the core gameplay more than they were allowed to. For better or worse, the increased focus on boss fights makes Dread stand out from the other entries in the series.
@sanderev
Tunic kinda does this and is pretty nasty about it, without warning you’re forced to complete a difficult stretch of the game with your stats stuck at 0 and any items you missed before this point are unobtainable so it’s very possible to be stuck and forced to resort to the god mode accessibility setting as the combat and camera simply aren’t good enough for the gauntlet it throws at the player to proceed.
They should make a Metroidvania where you start with everything unlocked at the beginning and the big boss has already been defeated and the galaxy has already been saved and you just sit around at home drinking tea because there’s nothing else to do.
…Sounds quite nice actually.
@Ooyah Yeah, same. I love the Metroid games (it's probably in my Top 3 favorite Nintendo franchises), but Dread was just brutal. I've never had such difficulty beating a Metroid game before. Not even that spider boss in Metroid Fusion was as tough as the bosses in Metroid Dread! Don't get me wrong; I still love the game, but it was just way too punishing, even for veterans of the series.
She could at least give us a ‘Not again…” when it happens…
From a narrative perspective it could make sense for it to happen later in the game or even never, but gameplaywise yeah, it's usually difficult to implement although funnily enough a Metroid game comes to mind that has already done at least the former to an extent: Zero Mission!
And yep, while arguably not as difficult as other Metroidvanias (with "Souls elements") I'd say Dread was still quite tough between certain EMMIs and bosses - man did some of them take me several tries, especially the final boss!
Maybe not, but if the series was competitive, that’s where you’d expect to have a fully capable Samus or Federation type from the get-go
"Otherwise, I think you would be disappointed. It’s like, what? You get everything from the beginning? It can’t be!"
He is wrong because I don't talk this dramatically about games.
I’d like a Metroid where you start out as Samus without the power armour (maybe an emergency catches her off guard) and you work your way up to getting it. I think that would be a nice narrative explanation for why she’s missing her moves. I don’t really care either way. Getting bonked on the head and losing all her moves works too.
@DiggleDog I've had the same idea in mind. Only I was thinking we'd built it through out the course of the game in which the abilities are tied to the pieces of the suit for progression. Samus being vulnerable in appearance but mechanically naked as well. Not quite like how we did it in Zero Mission.
@Ooyah same here, absolutely loved Dread but my GOD did I suffer.
Hmph. He's so right. There's no point playing the game if you don't get more powerful as you play. It simply wouldn't be Metroid anymore. The series has always thrived as a power fantasy and there's absolutely no need to change something that works well other than improving things here and there, like the brilliant melee counter.
Metroid Dread isn't just difficult, it's also immensely fun, and the clever increase in powers as the enemies grow stronger is a core part of that. Taking away powers as you play is essentially punishing the players for playing the game, an absolutely ridiculous concept. Even Soulslike games aren't that senseless.
How about giving you all of the old power ups at the beginning...and get this...coming up with new ones to discover! No, that would require original ideas, which most developers are in capable of.
@PROPS yes, I was thinking the exact same thing but without a negative comment about game developers!
@KidSparta Yeah, I'm not a fan of negativity, but it's true. Most game developers lack originality and so they milk the original ip to death and sometimes cheapen the overall experience with predictability (I'm looking at you Dread, with all of your color coded doors). The only upgrade or advancements they can come up with, are better graphics and new level design.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have an enemy that's studied Samus so that her arsenal is less effective against them, so she has to find new enhancements and technologies to tackle them? I'd rather this than the standard story of her armour just breaks but miraculously exact replacements are found on nearby planets anyway
Honestly wouldn’t mind a twist where she depleted her abilities over time so you have to find new ways to solve similar puzzles and it feels more like a survival to the end.
Any game that relies as much on backtracking as Metroid basically requires that you lose all or most of your abilities at the very beginning so that not everything is accessible to everyone immediately.
So surprised everyone says Metroid Dread was so difficult. I've never been a Metroidvania-player but I found Dread to be super easy up until the last boss (so difficult I haven't finished it yet). One of my favorite games of all time, even tried to understand "sequence breaking" which was a completely new concept to me.
This is a pretty common game design trope, especially with a returning playable character. This interview tidbit is almost a nothing burger IMO.
I found Metroid Dread to be difficult at times, but (mostly) fair. The final boss definitely deserves his title. The only sections I didn't really like were the E.M.M.I. sections; they seemed to interrupt game flow more than anything, plus I had many difficulties with the purple one since its ability was OP.
@Tyranexx Agreed, I hated the EMMI sections. So frustrating and unfair.
Shake it up! Start with all your powers and every boss you beat you lose one, but you still have to beat the boss.
@sanderev With each boss you defeat, you have to choose one of your character's skills or abilities to sacrifice!
A reasonable argument, but has he considered that you could instead just keep adding more weapons and gadgets with every game to become an ever more laughably overpowered and horrifically unwieldy walking armory?
@Yoshif3 we get it, you don't like the new Zeldas.
Yeah I mean the entire point of a Metroidvania game is you have to unlock new abilities in order to give you a reason to backtrack through older areas and discover new paths and areas.
Sure they could give you everything from the previous game from the start, but you'll have to get new stuff that renders all that moot anyway. And if they give you everything you'd have by the end of the game upfront and never take it away...well then it's not a Metroidvania it's an open world.
I'm indifferent if they did or didn't. Another wrinkle they could do is let her have all of her powers, except she'll find out quickly that the power she came into a world with won't help her navigate it properly, so she'll have no choice but the power up in a new way. I always viewed it as one of those big deal, not so big deal, things.
@Fiskern Good, point is coming across then. No signs of stopping though.
Zelda should be a Zeldavania ALWAYS, except for the occasional spin-off.
@sanderev I have actually been actively looking for a game concept similar to this - a reverse Metroidvania, where perhaps you have a certain amount of abilities and are able to access many areas, only to - for story reasons - start to lose certain abilities that beings to limit where you can go. I imagine that a clever game designer could do this in a creative way.
I did end up finding one game on Steam that was advertising itself as that concept, but it was stuck in development and the screenshots at the time didn't look too promising.
What a shocker!
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