48 Fun Facts About Metroid

Which villain is the final boss of the original Metroid?

Mother Brain is destroyed at the end of the first game but returns in Super Metroid, where she has Samus beaten until the Metroid hatchling gives its life to save her.

The title Metroid is a portmanteau of 'metro' and which other word?

Android was attached to 'metro', as in a subway, by designer Hiroji Kiyotake and a colleague, to suggest a robot-like hero in a mostly underground world.

On which console did the first Metroid reach North America in August 1987?

NES Metroid shipped without the save slots of the Japanese disk version, so the Western release had players write down a 24-letter password instead.

Which Texas-based developer made Metroid Prime for the GameCube?

Retro Studios had four other games in the works when Shigeru Miyamoto visited in 2000 and suggested putting its first-person shooter engine to work on Metroid instead.

Which Spanish studio developed Samus Returns and Metroid Dread?

MercurySteam had asked to remake Metroid Fusion; producer Yoshio Sakamoto turned the idea down but offered the studio a remake of Metroid II instead.

Which 1979 film has Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto called a "huge influence" on the first game?

Alien left its mark on the villains too: the dragon Ridley is widely believed to be named after the film's director, Ridley Scott.

Which of Samus's signature abilities was called the Maru Mari in the first Metroid's manual?

The Morph Ball's entry in that manual says Samus grows small and round "when he gets" the item: the booklet called her "he" throughout to protect the ending's surprise.

Samus Aran's surname was taken from the birth name of which footballer?

Pelé was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento. The bigger surprise came halfway through development, when a staff member suggested making Samus a woman.

Who headed Nintendo R&D1 and produced both Metroid and Metroid II?

Gunpei Yokoi was hired to maintain the machines that made Nintendo's playing cards; an extending toy arm he built in his spare time became a hit and made him a designer.

Which composer of Dr. Mario and EarthBound also wrote the eerie score of the original Metroid?

Hirokazu Tanaka wanted no line between music and sound effects, and held back any real melody until the final boss falls, as a release for the player.

Samus has been a playable fighter in which series since its first game in 1999?

Super Smash Bros. was Samus's only outing on the Nintendo 64: the console never got a Metroid game, yet she was one of the eight fighters available from the start.

Which studio handled Super Metroid's programming alongside Nintendo R&D1?

Intelligent Systems grew out of a team of programmers who had coded Nintendo's early hits, became a company of its own in 1986, and went on to create Fire Emblem and Paper Mario.

On which planet are the original Metroid and Super Metroid set?

Zebes does not survive Super Metroid: a countdown begins when the final boss dies, and Samus escapes moments before the whole planet explodes.

Which planet is the Metroids' homeworld, visited in Metroid II?

SR388 is where Samus hunts the species to extinction, until a newly hatched Metroid takes her for its mother and she cannot bring herself to kill it.

Which famous password starts the original Metroid with Samus out of her armoured suit?

JUSTIN BAILEY drops her into Norfair with 255 missiles, wearing the leotard that players otherwise saw only as a reward for finishing the game quickly.

In Metroid II, clearing an area's Metroids triggers what?

An earthquake follows each cull and drains the hazardous liquid blocking the tunnels below, so the hunt for the Metroids leads steadily deeper underground.

On which planet does Metroid Prime take place?

Tallon IV was a Chozo refuge until a meteor poisoned it, and Samus must gather twelve artifacts they left behind to open the way to the crater.

What is the mutagen the Space Pirates exploit in Metroid Prime?

Phazon is the Space Pirates' own name for the poison a meteor brought to the planet, and they mine it to mutate living creatures into weapons.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is set on which planet split into light and dark worlds?

Aether's dark twin has a caustic atmosphere that eats away at Samus's suit, so she has to cross it by hopping between pockets of light called safe zones.

In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which peaceful race is at war with the Ing?

The Luminoth were close to extinction when Samus arrived: a meteor strike decades earlier had split their world's energy in two and spawned the Ing in a dark twin dimension.

Under what title was Metroid Prime 2 released in Japan in 2005?

Dark Echoes reached Japan in May 2005, six months after the West, and its bosses proved so punishing that they were toned down when the game was reissued in Metroid Prime: Trilogy.

What does Hypermode cost Samus in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption?

An Energy Tank of health buys a burst of invincibility that the suit vents after 25 seconds; let the gauge overfill and the game can end with Samus fully corrupted.

What is the classic weakness of the Metroid creatures, used against them since the first game?

Cold is so much a part of them that in Metroid Fusion, when a vaccine made from Metroid cells saves Samus's life, she inherits their weakness to it.

Metroid Prime was first planned in which perspective before Miyamoto intervened?

Third-person was dropped after Shigeru Miyamoto, mindful of the camera trouble Rare had with Jet Force Gemini, judged that shooting from behind the hero was not intuitive.

Nintendo billed Metroid Prime not as a first-person shooter but as a first-person what?

Adventure was Nintendo's word for it because exploring matters more than shooting in the game, a label the company was already using nearly two years before release.

Which developer first worked on Metroid Prime 4 before Nintendo restarted the project?

Bandai Namco Studios' version was scrapped in 2019, when Nintendo said it fell short of its standards and began again from scratch; the finished game arrived in December 2025.

Which rogue hunter with a grudge against Samus is the rival in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond?

Sylux, first seen in Metroid Prime Hunters, damages an artifact while fighting Samus, and the blast teleports everyone nearby to the unknown planet Viewros.

What is the name of Samus's motorcycle in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond?

Vi-O-La exists because fans asked for an open-world Metroid after Breath of the Wild: the developers built one freely explorable hub, Sol Valley, and gave Samus a bike to cross it.

In Metroid Fusion, Samus nicknames her ship's computer after whom?

Adam was her former commanding officer, Adam Malkovich, and in the ending she realizes the computer really is his mind, uploaded after his death.

What is the name of the parasite copy of Samus at full power in Metroid Fusion?

The SA-X stalks her through the station with her own best weapons, and it turns out to reproduce: by the end there are no fewer than ten of them aboard.

Under what working title was Metroid Fusion first shown at E3 2001?

Metroid IV made a poor first impression: IGN called the footage "dark" and "muddy", then a year later gave the retitled game its Best of Show award.

Which feature introduced in Metroid Fusion tells the player where to go next?

Navigation Rooms are where the ship's computer briefs Samus on each objective, which makes this a more linear, story-led game than its predecessors.

Metroid: Zero Mission (2004) is a Game Boy Advance remake of which game?

Metroid (1986) is retold with a new final act: after the old ending, Samus is shot down and has to creep through a pirate mothership without her armour.

In Metroid: Zero Mission's suitless sequence, what is Samus's only weapon?

A pistol that only stuns for a moment is all she carries, so the last act becomes a stealth game of slipping past pirates she can no longer fight.

Which studio co-developed Metroid: Other M for the Wii?

Team Ninja returned the favour in its own fighting series: Dead or Alive: Dimensions has a stage set in the arena of Other M's Ridley fight, with Ridley still circling.

In Metroid: Other M, Samus investigates a derelict station known as what?

The Bottle Ship draws her in with a distress signal, and she lands to find a Federation platoon already aboard, led by her former commanding officer.

Which classic Metroid power-up did the first Metroid Prime leave out?

The Screw Attack, which turns Samus's somersault into a spinning blade of energy, had been in every earlier game, and its makers said fan demand left them no choice but to add it to the sequel.

Metroid Dread takes place on which planet?

ZDR is where seven Federation robots fall silent while checking a transmission that shows an X parasite alive, so Samus is sent in after them.

In Metroid Dread, Samus hides from which near-invincible hunter robots?

E.M.M.I. robots were built for research and sent ahead by the Federation, then reprogrammed to hunt Samus and extract the Metroid DNA in her body.

Who is the rogue warrior and main antagonist of Metroid Dread?

Raven Beak beats Samus in the opening minutes and strips her of her powers, then spends most of the game posing as her ship's computer to steer her.

Metroid Dread was originally conceived for which handheld in the mid-2000s?

DS hardware could not deliver what producer Yoshio Sakamoto had in mind, and a second prototype around 2008 was shelved too, before the idea finally reached Switch in 2021.

Which award did Metroid Dread win at The Game Awards 2021?

It was also nominated for Game of the Year and became the best-selling Metroid title.

Which boss from the first Metroid turns up alive in Metroid Dread?

Kraid is found shackled in a chamber of lava, having somehow outlived the destruction of the planet where Samus last fought him, and she kills him in the fight that follows.

Which combat move did Metroid: Samus Returns add at the suggestion of its developers, fresh from a Castlevania game?

A melee counter stuns a charging enemy and leaves it open to a charged shot; the studio had built a similar parry for Castlevania, and it returned in Dread.

Which Aeion ability does Samus find first in Metroid: Samus Returns?

Scan Pulse turns up early in the opening area and makes hidden breakable blocks flash, sparing players the hit-and-miss search for a way through.

Super Metroid's best ending requires finishing inside what time limit?

3 hours is the cut-off for the best of three endings, in which Samus takes off her armour; the game went on to become a favourite of speedrunners.

Super Metroid's opening line says the last Metroid is what?

In captivity, says Dan Owsen, the Nintendo of America localizer who voiced the line, and the peace it promises ends at once when Ridley steals the hatchling.

Which 2016 Metroid spin-off for the 3DS drew an online petition demanding its cancellation?

Metroid Prime: Federation Force drew the petition within hours of its unveiling in 2015; Nintendo later said Samus would be in it, though only as a character players cannot control.