Metroid is 40 Years Old, and Samus Aran is Way More Active than You
Metroid is 40 Years Old, and Samus Aran is Way More Active than You
Metroid Prime 4's middling sales are barely a speed bump for this long-lived Space Spartan.
August 2026 marks 40 years that Nintendo's "search action" series, Metroid, has existed. It's rare to commemorate a game series' 40th birthday, especially when that series has always existed on the down-low. Metroid games don't come around often, and when they do they don't tend to rack up huge sales numbers, especially outside the west. The beleaguered Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which lingered in development hell for years, sold about a million copies when it was finally released. As they say in Chernobyl, "Not great, not terrible."
In fact, the Metroid series' best-selling game is 2021's Metroid Dread for the Switch, which moved a hair over 3 million copies. Decent stuff, but when games like Super Mario Wonder are selling 17+ million and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are selling 20+ million, it's not hard to figure out why Nintendo hasn't poured much fuel over Metroid's 40th anniversary hype.
This might just be a cope, but the Metroid series' tendency to lurk on the edges of Nintendo's memory serves as a reflection of its oft-difficult solo gameplay and the solitary nature of its heroine, Samus Aran. In other words, the Metroid games aren't very popular but it's OK because Samus doesn't farm fame and mass recognition. (Yeah. Yeah, that's the ticket.) She's a bounty hunter whose primary concerns are 1) Not dying, and 2) Getting paid. Samus' cool ship likely takes buckets of money to keep washed and waxed.
Samus wasn't the first female video game character to net a starring role in an adventure, but she's arguably the best-known. Samus has since become something of a patron saint for aging woman gamers who appreciated having options back in the day beyond, "Pick Princess Toadstool in Super Mario 2 and shut up."
Samus has since become something of a patron saint for those of us who still seek out dark, close tunnels brought to life by atmospheric digital choirs of dead bird people. With MMOs being more popular than ever and games like Big Walk bringing friends together online for talk and teamwork, those of us who were raised on single-player games always appreciate having the option to plunge into an alien rathole and explore the bowels of an infested planet.
Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn't just make games to spread around cool vibes. It needs to make money, and Metroid titles don't bring in a lot of that. Metroid release dates can be years apart with entire console generations coming and going without a whisper from Samus. But despite Metroid Prime 4's "meh" sales, there's good reason to hope the bounty hunter will fight again in the near future. An age rating leak from the Brazilian government's Ministry of Justice and Public Security suggests that a new 2D game, titled Metroid Ravenous is coming sooner than later. This isn't terribly hard to believe: The subtitle is very suitable (iykyk) and it's unlikely anyone would make up a leak from the Brazilian government, of all places.
Still, people get bored in these weird times, which drives them to do weird things. If Ravenous is real, we'll discover the depths of Samus' appetite soon enough. It's just good to know Nintendo is aiming to let Samus drop a dimension for at least one more game. 2D adventures is where Samus is a viking.