The dangerous world of Metroid Dread opens up in Nintendo's latest sneak peek into Samus' upcoming adventure, as well as what may be our first look at its third Power Suit upgrade.
We already knew that Samus would descend upon Planet ZDR in the course of this story, which is set to be both a direct sequel to Metroid Fusion nearly twenty years later and the end to the story arc which began in the original Metroid. But the latest Metroid Dread report from Nintendo goes in-depth on a half dozen of the planet's individual regions, which are arranged like layers throughout the planet's crust.
While most previous Metroid games start at the surface of the world and spiral downward toward the core (with the exception of Metroid Fusion, since you're on a space station the whole time), Metroid Dread drops you all the way down to the deepest parts of ZDR, known as Artaria, after getting knocked out in the course of a Chozo attack at the start of the game.
The developers note in the report that Artaria has "many doors" you won't be able to open at the start of the game, so you can expect to do a good amount of backtracking to this region as you gain more abilities. Going up from there, other areas include volcanic Cataris, manufacturing center Dairon, partially submerged Burenia, near-surface forest Ghavoran, and Chozo ruins-dominated Ferenia.
Going back to Burenia, if we're not mistaken, Nintendo may have also teased our first look at Metroid Dread's new version of the Gravity Suit in one of its images.
The purple tones and extra light-up green elements look different from the suits we've seen Samus wearing so far. Plus, Nintendo's description of Burenia teases that Samus' "agility takes a hit when submerged while equipped with her standard Power Suit or the Varia Suit," strongly implying you'll get another suit to deal with that problem.
Find new worlds to explore while you wait for Metroid Dread in our guide to the best Metroidvania games.
