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Metroid Dread will give players the most freedom to explore since Super Metroid, and that may include moving through the game world in ways the developers did not intend.
The latest "Metroid Dread Report" from Nintendo recaps every side-scrolling entry in the Metroid series (so no Prime games or Other M) and notes how parts of each one will be reflected in Metroid Dread. The section for Super Metroid sets up some of the most exciting parallels.
"The Super Metroid game can be said to offer the greatest flexibility for exploration in the series," the report states. "You can enjoy similar flexibility in the Metroid Dread game, depending on how you take advantage of your abilities. You might be able to find ways to obtain weapons, items, and abilities earlier than the intended timing. We encourage you to try to discover alternate routes of exploration."
Article continues belowReaching parts of games before you're intended to do so, often by putting in-game abilities to use in unusual ways (also sometimes outright glitches), is referred to as "sequence breaking." For dedicated players of Super Metroid and many of the exploration games it helped inspire, sequence breaks are a hallmark of high-level play.
Now, Nintendo isn't outright stating that it will intentionally let you short-circuit whatever paths it intends for you to take - and if it did confirm that, I'm not even sure it would technically be sequence breaking any more - but it is giving an encouraging wink to ambitious explorers.
