A brand new feature is now available on our website, this time focusing on the Space Pirate civilisation, seen in the Metroid Prime series. These pirates have been a challenging and deadly foe for the Galactic Federation, and Samus Aran has encountered them on a number of adventures. This feature goes into their rich history, and focuses on their physiology, culture, technology, weaponry and war, and speculates their future. It’s another addition from our team member Quadraxis, which we hope you will consider reading!
Metroid Dread’s Boss Rush mode now available
Late tonight, Nintendo released the second free update for Metroid Dread that was announced back in February during the Nintendo Direct. This update adds the anticipated Boss Rush mode, in which you fight all the bosses one by one, with your damage carrying over to the next fight. Your missiles get restored after each fight, however. You unlock Boss Rush by completing the game once.
That’s not all, however – there’s a Practice Mode so you can prepare yourself and leaderboards to track your completion times. If you complete Boss Rush, you will unlock Survival Rush, which is a time-sensitive version of Boss Rush. Defeating bosses adds time to your clock, as does defeating them without taking damage. Your energy and missiles do not refill after each boss. Finally, there’s Dread Rush, which is unlocked by beating Dread Mode. You must defeat 12 bosses back to back without getting hit once, otherwise it’s Game Over.
This update is available now. Best of luck to those of you attempting any of these modes!
Source: Nintendo
Metroid Dread becomes third biggest Metroid game in the United Kingdom
According to GamesIndustry’s Christopher Dring, Metroid Dread has now had the third biggest launch of a Metroid title in the history of the United Kingdom, second only to Metroid Prime 1 and 3. It has already become the best selling 2D Metroid game in the UK. This is according to sales figures from GfK. While they only accounts for physical sales and does not include digital, it’s a strong indicator that the game will soon become the best selling Metroid game overall, if it hasn’t already.
Source: Christopher Dring
Metroid Dread wins Best Action-Adventure Game from Famitsu
Earlier today, the Famitsu Dengeki Game Awards 2021 took place, and Metroid Dread won the award for Best-Action Adventure Game. This is the same award that it won at The Game Awards in December 2021.
This is another victory for the galaxy’s greatest bounty hunter! As we recently reported, Metroid Dread is also up for EE Game of the Year 2022 at the BAFTA Games Awards on April 7th. Congratulations to MercurySteam and Nintendo on yet another achievement!
Source: Famitsu
Next Level Games’ president and co-founder Douglas Tronsgard is retiring
Today, the president and co-founder of Next Level Games Douglas Tronsgard announced his retirement. In a statement published by Video Games Chronicle, he said:
After over 20 years in the Video Game Industry, I am happy to announce my retirement. I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who helped me on my journey to get here. A special thank you to Nintendo for believing in me and Next Level Games. It’s truly been my honour to be a part of NLG’s incredible history. I look forward to a new chapter in my life that should involve lots of travelling with my wife.
As CEO of the then-independent Next Level Games, Douglas produced their published titles, including Metroid Prime: Federation Force on the Nintendo 3DS. Last year, Nintendo acquired Next Level Games, making Douglas the president. It was recently announced that NLG is working on Mario Strikers: Battle League, which is set to be released on June 10, 2022.
On behalf of the team at Shinesparkers, we would like to thank Douglas for his role in the development of Federation Force, and we wish him a long and happy retirement.
Community Spotlight: RyRyCosmos
Our second Community Spotlight of the year features the work of RyRyCosmos, a character designer and illustrator who makes a lot of Metroid fanart. He’s been making art since he was a kid and his work has been greatly influenced by the colourful style of the Metroid series, citing mostly Metroid Fusion. RyRy’s also very fond of the Fusion Suit design!
Metroid Dread nominated for EE Game of the Year 2022
Today, it was announced that Metroid Dread has been nominated for EE Game of the Year 2022! This award is part of the BAFTA Games Awards and is made possible through a partnership between BAFTA and EE, a British mobile network provider. The other nominees are Deathloop, The Forgotten City, It Takes Two, Unpacking and Chicory: A Colorful Tale. The winner is selected by public ballot. Voting is open today and will close on April 1st, with the winner being announced during the BAFTA Games Awards on April 7th.
Click this link to vote for Metroid Dread.
Source: MercurySteam
Feature: Metroid Around the World
Our first feature of the year is now live on the website! For this one, we searched far and wide across Google Maps to discover various companies and real world locations with a Metroid sounding names. Did you know there’s a lake in Sweden named Kriken? Or a mountain hiking route in Spain that translates to Path of the Chozo? We were quite surprised to find so many places with familiar sounding Metroid names! Perhaps you know some that we didn’t mention? Let us know on our social media pages!
Episode 22 – Kynan Pearson (Ex Retro Studios)
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Our twenty-second episode welcomes Kynan Pearson, a former Retro Studios developer who was a Level Designer for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. He then went on to become Lead Designer for Donkey Kong Country Returns.
Kynan discusses how the Metroid series could be adapted for other genres, and goes on to share his thoughts on Metroid Dread, and his concepts for future Metroid games.
Podcast is hosted by Amanda, with team member Roy joining in with the conversation.
00:00 – Guest: Kynan Pearson Introduction
03:36 – Topic: Metroid in other genres
24:20 – Topic: Kynan’s thoughts on Metroid Dread, and concepts for Metroid
35:14 – Mailbag: If Metroid Prime was released in 2022, what quality of life improvements would you like to see made to it?
40:55 – Bloopers
Retro Studios changes Twitter banner to concept art with Samus
It has been brought to our attention that Retro Studios has changed the banner on its Twitter profile. It shows Samus’s silhouette, standing in what appears to be a corridor with dim blue lighting. While they have not explained the change, this concept art is not known to have been previously released. It could very well be a teaser for Metroid Prime 4.
We will update this post if more information develops.
UPDATE (February 18, 2022): An advertisement has been spotted on ArtStation. It shows another silhouette of Samus with “Your next mission awaits”, followed by the first image with “Retro is hiring!” You can see it for yourself here.
Source: @RetroStudios
