The Nintendo Switch Saved Metroid [IGN]

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Metroid was, at one point, very much at risk of being shelved. Metroid has never moved serious numbers and according to all available data, the total sales for every Metroid game combined is somewhere around 22 million units. To put that into perspective, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild alone has sold 32 million copies.

But what Metroid and Samus lacked in sales success, it more than made up for it in brand recognition. Nintendo fans who don’t like Metroid games at least know of it, and Super Smash Bros. kept Samus in front of gamers for years, even when there weren’t new Metroid games to play. Now, on the Nintendo Switch, Samus is ever-present, even if that wasn’t always the case.

Of Nintendo’s many beloved characters, perhaps nobody is as fascinating as the enigmatic bounty hunter, Samus Aran. When Metroid was released in 1986, the sci-fi, Alien-inspired search-action game was released and would go on to spawn a genre unto itself.

For older Nintendo gamers looking for something new, Metroid was a revelation. Where Zelda and Mario put players in wide, open worlds of bright hues, Metroid was dark and cramped. Its creature designs were downright terrifying and the central Metroid plotline was a direct reference to one of cinema’s scariest, face-hugging aliens.

Metroid filled a more mature niche within the Nintendo stable, but as a result never found the same financial success as the more all-ages games.

In 2010 Nintendo released Metroid: Other M to tepid sales and perhaps worse critical reception. Commercial disaster and the inability to recapture the magic of Metroid Prime could have spelled the end of Samus. It didn’t, but it did take six years before the next Metroid game was released, the very-much forgotten Metroid Prime: Federation Force (coincidentally a minor character from that 3DS game is apparently a main villain in Metroid Prime 4). Other than a well-received 3DS remake of Metroid 2 a year later, Samus was all but missing from the Wii U and early Switch years.

It seems distant now but this was the era Metroid fans began to seriously fret over the future of the series. Other than various re-releases of older Metroid games, the only real project seemingly in development was Metroid Dread, a game that was first referenced during the Nintendo DS era and entered two decades of development hell.

However, Metroid Dread did eventually find its way to the Nintendo Switch, almost 20 years after it began development. Even more surprising, Dread – a throwback to the old 2D style of Metroid games – is the best-selling game in the series at over 3 million units sold. Not Zelda numbers, sure, but the numbers were heading in the right direction.

Combining the old-school 2D style of Metroid with a Resident Evil 2-like persistent enemy that takes the game to borderline horror territory, Metroid Dread was a shot of adrenaline for the series and quickly became one of the best games to play on the Nintendo Switch. But it’s not just because Nintendo released one of the best Metroid games of all time on the Switch that I believe the handheld console saved Metroid – it’s because Nintendo released all of the best Metroid games on the system.

Consider the Metroid library currently available on Switch. There’s the aforementioned Dread, a truly remarkable remake of Metroid Prime, Metroid Fusion, Super Metroid, the original Metroid, and now Metroid: Zero Mission all available to play on the Switch so long as you have either a digital copy of the game or a subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online library.

Almost overnight the Nintendo Switch became the ultimate entryway for old — but more importantly new — fans to discover Metroid. In the digital age, old games in particular are incredibly hard to come by and while Nintendo might not have fans among some sectors of the digital preservation community, the Metroid series at least is thriving on the Switch.

Some of these games, like the Game Boy Advance titles Metroid: Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion, are still relatively pricey on the secondhand market, while others like the full Metroid Prime Trilogy still remain trapped on obsolete consoles like the Wii. But for curious fans looking to get into the full Metroid offering, they can’t do better than pick up a Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo has hardly showered any one console with more Metroid than the Nintendo Switch. And given the Switch’s humongous install base, making Metroid easy to access will hopefully only continue to grow that fanbase for the future.

Now, with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond on the horizon, and still confirmed for the Nintendo Switch rather than the Switch Successor, the Metroid parade on Nintendo’s hybrid system continues. And while individual consoles like the SNES, GameCube, and GameBoy Advance can boast about having released the best Metroid games of their generation, only one system — the Nintendo Switch — has all of them, ready to play at a moment’s notice.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.