Nintendo reveals Metroid Dread for release in October

Nintendo has officially announced Metroid Dread for release on Nintendo Switch.

The side-scrolling action game will release on October 8, 2021, the company announced during a Nintendo Direct on Tuesday.

Once again co-developed by Mercury Steam (Samus Returns), Dread will continue hero Samus’ story after Metroid Fusion, exploring a strange new planet alone and hunted by the ominous E.M.M.I.

A Metroid Dread Special Edition will also be available, Nintendo announced, which includes the game, a SteelBook case, a 190-page 2D Metroid franchise artbook and five cards that feature box art from all the games in the five-part saga. 

A new Samus amiibo figure and an E.M.M.I. amiibo figure will be available in a two-pack set at launch.

“We’ve finally announced a brand-new instalment in the 2D Metroid series, Metroid Dread,” said Metroid series producer Yoshio Sakamoto during a Treehouse live stream on Tuesday.

“Continuing the saga that began in 1986 with Metroid and continued through Metroid II, Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, this is the first new story and new episode for 19 years.”

He added: “The series has chronicled the uncanny relationship between Metroid and the heroine Samus, but this game will make and end to that story arc.”

Metroid Dread was a title that often came up in rumour columns more than a decade ago, with the title said to have been in development for Nintendo DS.

In Tuesday’s stream, Sakamoto confirmed that “the idea” for Metroid Dread first came up “about 15 years ago. He explained: “however, we gave up on the idea at the time because we felt the technology back then just couldn’t properly bring the concept to life.”

The producer explained that he had attempted to revive the concept, but that it wasn’t possible to achieve his original ambitions until recently, when it co-developed Samus Returns with Spanish studio Mercury Steam.