Metroid Dread

Metroid Dread ended a 19-year wait for a 2D Metroid sequel and rewarded that patience with interest.

Mercury Steam have internalised what makes Metroid tick — the sense of isolation, the environmental storytelling, the satisfaction of a locked door finally yielding — and added modern movement and parry systems that feel native to the series rather than grafted on. Samus has never felt more agile or more powerful, which makes the strips of those abilities in the early game feel earned rather than arbitrary.

The EMMI encounters are the headline new feature and they are genuinely terrifying in the best way. These indestructible hunter robots patrol their zones with a relentlessness that creates palpable tension. The game teaches you to feel the EMMI zones the way Alien Isolation teaches you to feel the Xenomorph — as a shift in your entire physiology. When you finally obtain the weapon to destroy each EMMI the catharsis is extraordinary.

ZDR is one of the best Metroid maps ever designed. The environmental variety across its biomes — volcanic, aquatic, crystalline, biomechanical — gives each area a distinct personality while the connective tissue of the map design rewards exploration in the series' tradition.

The story resolves the Metroid arc that began in the original NES game in a way that felt genuinely satisfying, even if its delivery via dialogue and cutscene is more explicit than the environmental mystery the series is known for.

My only critique is that Dread is relatively short — 8 to 12 hours for most players, with a strict linearity that leaves little room for sequence breaking or the kind of emergent exploration that defines Metroid's best moments. The difficulty on Normal is forgiving; veteran Metroid players may want to go straight to Dread mode.