Recently, we had the pleasure of interviewing Lawrence Schwedler, the composer of Metroid Prime Hunters, and for Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt. Lawrence kindly offered many great responses to our questions, and anecdotes from his time working on the two software titles. We don’t want to give too much away, so we urge you to check out the interview in the link below. We are incredibly thankful for the opportunity to learn more about the sounds of Metroid Prime Hunters, and want to thank Lawrence for taking the time out to shae them with us!
Episode 20 – End of Year 2021

Our twentieth episode rounds off the year 2021 by looking back at our content from Shinesparkers published this year, highlighting some of the great features and community spotlights across the website. The podcast also features a special Metroid themed quiz, featuring six contestants from members of the Shinesparkers community!
Please be aware that this episode will contain spoilers from Metroid Dread. This will be our last notice regarding spoilers, so if you wish to avoid them in this episode or in the future, please listen once you’ve played the game.
00:46 – Main topic: Looking back at a year of Shinesparkers content
09:57 – Metroid themed quiz featuring members of the Shinesparkers community
48:00 – Closing comments
49:09 – Bloopers
Special thanks to Shinesparkers community members The Orpheon, Deadweight, Doeboy, TorvusBolt, Metroid Trainer and Metroid35 for taking part in our quiz!
Community Spotlight: Doeboy
Our final Community Spotlight for the year has now been published! This time, we are highlighting a personality within the Metroid community known as Doeboy. He’s a full-time Twitch streamer, content creator, and broadcast producer. Doeboy has had a big presence within the Super Smash Bros. community too, taking part in major tournaments as a Samus main, and organiser of the infamous Smash Bros. “Ultimate Summit”.
A huge thanks to everyone who allowed us to share their work this year. We hope that we were able to share some amazingly talented individuals and help them receive more recognition for their contributions!
Metroid Dread wins Best Action Adventure Game at The Game Awards
In a major victory for the galaxy’s greatest bounty hunter, Metroid Dread has won the award for Best Action Adventure Game at The Game Awards 2021! Doug Bowser accepted the award on behalf of MercurySteam and Nintendo. Congratulations to them both on this spectacular achievement! Stay tuned to find out if it wins Game of the Year.
Metroid Dread wins “Best Spanish Game” at the Huawei 3D Games Awards 2021
You can watch the timestamped stream of the award below, in Spanish.
Feature: The Shadow Federation
Back in August, our team member Quadraxis shared a feature written from research into the Galactic Federation’s past and present history. Today, we are thrilled to share part two of that feature, in which Quadraxis focuses on the “Shadow Federation”. This is his name for the secretive faction within the Federation that were responsible for the illegal bioweapon projects on the Bottle Ship and BSL research station, and possibly the E.M.M.I. too. We hope you’ll enjoy reading about the Federation splinter group.
Metroid Dread Report Volume 11 Released
In a surprising move, Nintendo has released an eleventh volume in the Metroid Dread Report series, detailing some hints and strategies to help players through Metroid Dread. Be sure to check it out if you’re having some problems getting through the game!
MercurySteam confirms they’re developing a new RPG
MercurySteam has partnered with Digital Bros., the parent company of video game publisher 505 Games, to produce their next game. An original IP called Project Iron, it will be “a third-person action role-playing game set in a dark fantasy world.” Project Iron is to be released on multiple platforms and has a budget of €27 million, or about $30.7 million USD. The IP is co-owned by Digital Bros. and MercurySteam.
In a statement, Digital Bros. said: “We are thrilled to work with the team at MercurySteam, a proven studio that over the years has created numerous phenomenal IPs – including the recent hit release Metroid Dread in partnership with Nintendo. With MercurySteam’s creative vision and talent and 505 Games extensive experience, gamers can expect a high-quality, captivating and engaging videogame.”
MercurySteam brought us Metroid Dread last month, and Metroid: Samus Returns before that, and they were both fantastic entries in the Metroid series. With their passion, dedication and skill, I think Project Iron will be a great success. Best of luck to MercurySteam on their new game!
Source: Digital Bros./VGC
Community Spotlight: Dewey Newt
Our Community Spotlight of the month is now live! Today we feature the work of Dewey Newt, a musician who made quite a lot of Metroid remixes. He was part of the Harmony of a Hunter Returns album, and made “U’Mos’ Mainframe”, a chiptune remix of Sanctuary Fortress from Metroid Prime 2. We hope you’ll check out his work!
Metroid Dread takes third place in the Ultimate Game of the Year category at the Golden Joystick Awards 2021
Metroid Dread came in at a respectable third place in the Ultimate Game of the Year category at this year’s Golden Joysticks, losing out to Resident Evil Village. In addition to this, Metroid Dread also won Nintendo Game of the Year.
A huge congratulations to the teams at Nintendo and Mercury Steam for a great result!