It's been 19 years since Metroid Fusion on the GBA, and this upcoming installment in the 2D adventures of the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter is billed as a conclusion to a five-game series that includes the 8-bit original, plus Metroid II: Return of Samus on Game Boy (remade for 3DS by Spanish studio MercurySteam - more about them later), the sublime Super Metroid on SNES, the aforementioned Fusion, and now Dread. "Her cool persona and integrity as a warrior has been a very important point for us to maintain and do justice to," Sakamoto continued via an interpreter during a group Zoom Q&A session we attended the morning after the E3 reveal. Yes, incredibly, 2021 marks the 35th anniversary of Samus' debut in the original Metroid for Famicom Disk System (and later NES). As producer on the freshly announced Metroid Dread, the veteran Nintendo developer has guided the course of this action-exploration franchise for three-and-a-half decades now. "Samus Aran and her cool warrior persona, the exploration element, and the various elements of surprise."Īccording to series overseer Yoshio Sakamoto, these tenets are the consistent components of any game that carries the name 'Metroid'.