Metroid Dread is an important game for many reasons.
It’s the first new Metroid game in 11 years that isn’t a remake, it’s the first original
2D Metroid in 19 years, and it’s the first home console 2D Metroid in 27 years.
It’s also the first Metroid with HD graphics.
If you don’t count Metroid Blast in Nintendo Land, which you should count, because it’s amazing.
It's been quite a long time since we've had a new Metroid game, and chances are
Dread will be a lot of people's first entry in the series who are unaware of the full story.
So if you’re a new Metroid fan or need a refresher on the story so far, this is the
video for you, as we’re going to go over the events of the Metroid games in chronological order.
Beginning with the one that started it all: Metroid on the NES, or Metroid: Zero Mission on the Game Boy Advance.
Considering this remake has more story elements, this is the one we'll be covering in this video.
The story of Metroid begins with creatures called...you guessed it, Metroids.
These deadly creatures latch on to any unfortunate prey and suck the life out of them.
Not a very pleasant way to go.
Metroids were discovered on the planet SR388 by a team of researchers working for the Galactic
Federation, which serves as the galaxy’s sovereign government.
They attempted to bring the Metroids back home for further analysis until they were
attacked by Space Pirates, who are the series’ primary antagonists, who stole the Metroids
to use them as bioweapons to conquer the galaxy.
To prevent this takeover, the Galactic Federation enlisted the help of intergalactic bounty
hunter Samus Aran to head to the Space Pirate base on Planet Zebes to eliminate all Metroid
organisms and defeat the mechanical life-form, Mother Brain.
Here, Samus encountered quite the opposition, from Space Pirate generals like Kraid and
Ridley, leading up to the final battle, Mother Brain itself.
After destroying Mother Brain and the base, she leaves the planet, only to get shot down
by the Space Pirates, landing back on the planet’s surface, and without her power suit.
She sneaks onto the grounded Space Pirate mothership Samus Fisher-style, and she finds
the ruins of Chozodia, a place left behind by the Chozo species.
You see, Samus’s parents were killed by Space Pirates when she was a child, and she
was then raised by the Chozo on Planet Zebes.
Here, she encounters a Ruins Test, which she passes and gains a powerful suit as a reward.
Then she goes full Rambo on the Space Pirates, blows up their mothership with all the Metroid
research, and escapes the planet for good.
Now you would THINK the story continues with Metroid II, and it once did, but we now have
an entire trilogy with a 4th on the way plus two spinoffs before then.
Here’s the thing though, the Metroid Prime series doesn’t really affect the mainline Metroid games.
There’s this element called Phazon, a Dark version of Samus, it’s a pretty cool story,
but it’s never once mentioned in the 2D series of games.
So let’s ignore them for now and get back to the story as it pertains to Dread.
Now let’s RETURN to the 2D games with Metroid II: Return of Samus on the Game Boy or the
remake Metroid: Samus Returns on the 3DS, which has some additional story elements that
we will be covering in this recap.
Despite Samus destroying the Space Pirate base on Zebes, the Galactic Federation was
still concerned about the threat of Metroids, so they sent a team of elite soldiers to investigate planet SR388.
They soon went missing but sent back enough data to confirm that Metroids were still abundant
within the planet’s center.
Upon finding this out, the Galactic Federation Council unanimously agreed to send Samus to
exterminate the Metroids on the planet once and for all.
After defeating them and the Metroid Queen that spawned them, Samus found one left: a
Baby Metroid, who looked upon her with child-like curiosity instead of the hostility she’s
come to expect from the species.
However, when she gets back to her ship, Ridley is there to greet her, which results in an
intense battle that almost gets Samus killed until she’s saved by the Baby Metroid.
Imagine getting bested by a baby.
How embarrassing!
Samus defeats Ridley and leaves SR388 with the Baby Metroid.
She then delivers the baby to the Galactic Research Station on Ceres for the scientists to research.
And with that, the last Metroid is in captivity.
The Galaxy is at peace.
These famous words were spoken at the beginning of Super Metroid, the next game in the timeline.
Shortly after Samus leaves the research station after dropping off the baby, she gets a distress
signal from the station.
She quickly flies back to see dead bodies everywhere, and the baby Metroid missing.
Luckily it’s in the next room.
Unluckily, it’s in the clutches of Ridley, who JUST can’t take a hint!
"How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?"
Ridley escapes with the baby before the station blows up.
Samus also escapes the station and follows Ridley back to the Planet Zebes.
Turns out, the Space Pirates have built ANOTHER base on Zebes.
This time, Samus has to fight Ridley and Kraid once again while also taking on Crocomire,
Draygon, and Phantoon.
There are some truly nightmarish bosses in this game.
When Samus gets into Mother Brain’s corridors, she takes it down once again, or so she thinks.
Mother Brain then morphs into some giant T-rex-looking monster and is on the cusp of defeating Samus
with its laser, until the Baby Metroid swoops in to protect Samus from the blast, ultimately
sacrificing itself to save her life.
With the hyper beam powers absorbed, Samus takes Mother Brain down in a victorious blow.
Samus escapes the fortress before it blows up, causing the planet Zebes to be destroyed.
Now we arrive at Metroid: Other M, set shortly after the events of Super Metroid.
On her search for a new bounty, Samus receives an emergency transmission from a facility
called the Bottleship.
When she arrives on the Bottleship, she runs into the Galactic Federation 7th Platoon,
led by her former CO Adam Malkovich who agrees to have Samus on the mission.
Exploring the ship reveals that it was a research station for the Galactic Federation to secretly
and illegally experiment with bioweapons.
The experiments were being led by Dr. Madeline Bergman, who Samus encounters later in the game.
Madeline confirms that Metroids are also an experiment on the bottleship and that Adam
is behind it all.
Samus goes to Sector Zero where the Metroids are being held, where she encounters a baby
Metroid similar to the one found on SR388.
She is soon stunned by Adam, who explains that he isn’t the one behind it all, and
now he plans to enter Sector Zero, detach it from the bottleship, and blow it to smithereens.
Samus, unable to stop him, watches as Adam is blown away.
One of his last orders was to locate a survivor in Room MW, and Samus goes to find them.
When she does, the survivor opens a hatch with a Metroid queen inside.
Luckily, this ain’t Samus’s first rodeo, and she kills it.
She chases down the survivor, who reveals herself to be the real Madeline Bergman, and
that the one Samus met earlier was an android with the ship’s AI installed in it.
The AI is called MB and it’s designed to be similar to Mother Brain.
Naturally, the AI became self-aware and unleashed all the monsters to attack the station.
Madeline and Samus are confronted by MB, who once again unleashes the ship’s deadliest
creatures onto them and the Galactic Federation Marines.
MB is soon killed by the marines during the onslaught.
Samus and the team bring Madeline back to Galactic Federation HQ, but Samus goes back
to the Bottleship days later to retrieve Adam’s helmet, but not without confronting Phantoon
for a final boss battle.
After killing Phantoon and retrieving the helmet, she runs back to her ship before the
facility self-destructs.
And now we are at the final game in the timeline, Metroid Fusion.
This brings Samus back to SR388, where she is tasked to escort a team of researchers
working for a corporation called Biologic.
On the surface, they are ambushed by a hornoad, which Samus kills with ease, but out of the
corpse comes an unknown organism that attaches itself to Samus.
This would be known as the X parasite, and it causes Samus to lose consciousness on her way back
from the mission, drifting her gunship into an asteroid belt.
She is ejected from her ship and is transported to Galactic Federation HQ, and here she is
further corrupted by the X parasite.
A scientist soon came up with a cure using Metroid DNA from the deceased Baby Metroid from SR388.
Samus receives the vaccine, thus eliminating all traces of the X parasite from her body,
but now her body is infused with Metroid DNA.
After she recovers, she is sent to investigate an explosion that happened on a station owned
by the Biological Space Laboratories, or BSL for short.
This station received the creatures found on the SR388 expedition as well as the infected
parts of Samus’s suit.
So naturally, things go south and the station is bombarded by creatures infected with the
X parasite.
Here to help her on her mission is Adam, her new ship’s computer that she named after
her former CO who died in Metroid Other M. She discovers later that the X parasite has
made a clone of her dubbed SA-X, which she has to run away from or avoid until she is fully powered.
Samus soon enters the Restricted Laboratory, which is full of Metroids.
The lab is soon jettisoned and self-destructs.
Adam explains that the Federation has been working on a Metroid breeding program to use
them for “peaceful applications.”
He then suggests Samus leave the rest of this investigation to the Galactic Federation,
which she promptly disagrees with.
She decides to activate the facility’s self-destruct sequence, causing Adam to lock her in a navigation
room as ordered by the Federation.
Samus yells at Adam, referring to him by name, and he’s confused.
She explains that she named him after her CO that sacrificed his life to save her.
Moved by this, Adam suggests that she alter the station’s orbit to include SR388 in the explosion.
Also, it turns out Adam’s personality was uploaded to this computer before he died,
so he starts acting as the human Adam would’ve in that situation.
She goes to the Operations Room to activate the sequence, only to be ambushed by the SA-X,
who then turns into a hideous freak of nature halfway through the battle.
When she kills it, the X-parasite core flies away, and then Samus heads to the docking
bay to board her ship for escape.
Until she is cornered by an Omega Metroid that almost kills her.
Luckily she is saved by none other than the SA-X parasite, who absorbs itself into Samus,
giving her the ice beam to defeat the Omega Metroid.
As she flies away, she sees the station crash into planet SR388, destroying the planet,
the Metroids, and the X parasite for good.
Samus believes that she will be held responsible for defying the Federation for this action,
and Adam reassures her that one of them must understand.
I guess we will have to find this out when Metroid Dread releases on October 8, 2021,
19 years after this game.
But there you have it, this was a brief recap of the main story events of Metroid so far.
If you have the time before the game’s release, we recommend playing these games beforehand
to truly appreciate the journey Samus has been on leading to the events of Dread.
If you don’t have time though, well that’s what this video was for.
So congratulations, you’re prepared for Metroid Dread!
We hope you enjoy it!
And thank you so much for watching.
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Until next time, buy Metroid Dread!