What you need to know
- Nintendo revealed Metroid Dread at its Nintendo E3 event.
- It's a new side-scrolling platformer set after the events of Metroid Fusion.
- The name is the same as a legendary canceled Metroid project.
Nintendo revealed Metroid Dread during its E3 event. The new title is a side-scrolling platformer starring Samus Aran, and it's launching on the Nintendo Switch on Oct. 8, 2021.
At the beginning of the reveal, the game was referred to as Metroid 5, making it the first new entry in the 2D Metroid series in 19 years. We see Samus, wearing a new suit, taking on a white robot of some kind. Nintendo referred to it in a tweet as "the ominous E.M.M.I." The trailer showed both cutscenes and gameplay.
Metroid Dread was a game originally supposed to be in development for the Nintendo DS, having been announced in 2005. Very few details about the game were ever revealed, except that it was supposed to follow the events of Metroid Fusion. It was presumed cancelled when it missed its rumored release window in 2006. Whether or not this game is the same as the cancelled project, using this name is a massive shoutout for an obscure bit of Nintendo trivia.
Before the trailer was shown, Nintendo exec Shinya Takahashi said that, while developers were working on the previously announced Metroid Prime 4, it had nothing more to show from it at this time. Nintendo also revealed that it was releasing amiibo of Samus in her new suit and E.M.M.I. alongside the game itself on October 8.
