“The video game market remains affected by challenging competitive dynamics, driven by an oversupply of new releases and increasingly selective consumers,” wrote the company in its announcement. “These conditions make it particularly difficult to successfully launch new titles and to develop reliable forecasting models capable of accurately projecting sales and volumes at launch.”

The company further goes on to explain that, despite the critical praise seen by Blades of Fire, the game performed under the expectations that had been set by Digital Bros. The reason for it, the company believes, has to do with challenges that arise from releasing a brand new game that isn’t already part of a pre-existing franchise.

“This confirms the challenges faced by most industry peers and competitors in attracting consumers to new titles, particularly when these are not backed by an established brand driving a loyal player community,” wrote Digital Bros. “Consequently, revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, which was already projected to decline year-on-year, is now expected to contract even further.”

Blades of Fire being unable to meet the company’s sales targets has meant that around EUR 8 million has to be written off based on preliminary tests done by its board of directors. The overall EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) losses for the fiscal year is expected to sit at around EUR 10 million.

Blades of Fire was released on PC (exclusively via Epic Games Store), PS5 and Xbox Series X/S back in May. The action RPG takes cues from FromSoftware’s Souls-style of games when it comes to having deliberate combat and challenging encounters, and pairs it with its own unique progression system that revolves around the player making use of a forge to craft weapons to take on different situations.

Players take on the role of King’s Ward firstborn Aran de Lira, who has set out on a quest to stop the evil machinations of Queen Nerca, who is able to use her magical abilities to turn steel into stone.

While a demo for the game has been out for quite some time now, Blades of Fire recently also got a 10-hour free trial on Xbox Series X/S over the previous weekend. This free trial was essentially the full game, albeit with a time limit of 10 hours, after which players could transfer their progress over to the full game if they decided to pick it up.

Previously, Blades of Fire’s lead game designer, Joan Amat, had spoken about how the progression system in the game doesn’t ultimately end with players becoming magical gods. For more details about the action RPG, check out our review.

The one thing about this game that truly differentiates itself for me is the forging. Blades of Fire has the deepest smithing system I’ve ever experienced in a game … well, unless there’s a smith simulator or something that I haven’t played. I’d say half of this game’s identity lies in the forging systems. For one, you actually manually forge the weapons yourself deciding everything from blade shape, shaft type, and grade of metals used. It’s brilliantly customizable and immersive as heck.

The forging process starts at the blackboard where you choose all of the various pieces and metals you want to use. Some metals are more durable but less damaging than others, just as blade heads vary on their reach, speed, and damage, among other stat variables. You can really min/max your weapons and fine tune them. For those who don’t want to get bogged down by pages of customization, each weapon type starts out with an initial design, skipping blackboard planning entirely if you desire.

"You manually forge the weapons yourself deciding everything from blade shape, shaft type, and grade of metals used."

With the weapon design specified, it’s time to hit the anvil for some forge work.  I absolutely love how forging impacts your weapon in gameplay. Depending on your forging performance, you can earn up to five stars. These ‘Forge Stars’ directly determine how many repairs the weapon gets before breaking. Being good at forging therefore benefits you with a longer-lasting weapon, yet doesn’t completely destroy or hamper the weapon’s efficacy, which is fair. The forging minigame itself is, again, one of the deepest smithing minigames I’ve experienced. Each weapon has a general shape that must be closely adhered to when forging; this is represented by a white line.

The steel you’re carving from are the vertical dark bars. The goal is to strike the dark bars to fit the shape of the white line, and this is done by increasing and decreasing the power of strikes and tilting the angle of the hammer. The cherry on top is the the option to name your self-wrought weapon after forging it. Shaping the weapon through this minigame is surprisingly engaging, but there are times when I just want a another weapon without all the steps involved – and fortunately, this is possible. Previously made weapon types can be automatically forged using your previous star rating. There’s still a lot of button presses and little animations to skip to bypass the forging process, though. And considering how often players are forced to forge new weapons thanks to durability, that’s quite a lot of time just mashing skip. I lament that there’s not a single quick template button.

"Instead of forging right there at the anvil, you’re required to teleport to a separate ‘Forger’s’ realm. In general, there’s quite a bit of loading involved in forging."

That said, I wasn’t bothered by the frequency of weapons breaking. Unlike, say, Zelda Breath of the Wild, any weapon can last dozens upon dozens of fights. The frequency feels just right, and it can be further tuned through your selection of metals during forging. I’m usually a ‘no weapon durability’ guy when it comes to action games, but didn’t mind it at all in this game. Something that could’ve very easily compounded weapon scarcity is the active equipped weapon being left at the place you died at. This could’ve easily turned into something very frustrating, but instead, no matter how many times you die, weapons aren’t lost permanently; they stay in the spot you died with them. Nothing else is lost upon death, by the way, just the equipped weapon.

If retrieval run-backs sounds familiar, that’s because it is. This game has its own take on the Dark Souls Bonfire mechanic; just replace bonfire with anvil and it’s mostly the same thing. Forger’s Anvils are carefully placed throughout the map, functioning as the game’s checkpoints. Enemies respawn once the player rests at them. And resting is crucial in this game, considering the finite amount of health bottles that only get refilled when resting. It’s here at these anvils where fast travel is possible too, and where some of the game’s load times make themselves apparent.

I don’t mind a small bit of loading in between anvil teleports, but it’s also at anvils where the player must go to forge their weapons. Instead of forging right there at the anvil, you’re required to teleport to a separate ‘Forger’s’ realm which, you guessed it, requires a separate load screen in and out of. Like the fast travel load times, these are noticeable in length and add up cumulatively considering how often you’re going to be forging new weapons.

I wish forging didn’t require two load screens, another small walk to the forging anvil, and a handful of scenes but was initiated right there in the actual game world, but it’s not a deal breaker. Speaking of performance, a majority of the game runs at a smooth 60 frame a second with quality visuals still intact. Though, when large amounts of enemies are on screen at once, things tend to get a bit choppy with frame dips.

"I felt reassured in my combat abilities thanks to responsive and relatively tight controls."

Yet even in the midst of a swarm of enemies and some frame stutters, I felt reassured in my combat abilities thanks to responsive and relatively tight controls. Unlike other third-person action games, you can zoom the camera out a decent amount. No over-the-shoulder claustrophobia here. Aran has a spritely dash in any direction and a quick sprint.

Though the turning radius is somewhat wide, I never felt too spatially restricted during battles thanks to the dash and dodge roll. I did, however, feel the absence of a jump. Maybe that’s just my conditioning from the absolute free movement that Elden Ring has, but I couldn’t help wanting to jump throughout the entire game. The icing on the snappy control cake is the ability to cancel out of dodges and attacks instantly (with the exception of heavy attacks).

As the name of the game implies, melee weapons are the primary, and only, method of dishing out pain to enemies. Aran is given four directional attacks which are mapped to the four face buttons on a controller. These correspond to the four directions, which comes into play against enemies and their weak parts, some which can get dismembered.

While there’s no combos per-se, stringing together directional attacks is smooth and seamless, unless you’re out of stamina. Stamina can be recovered pretty quickly by holding the block button. That’s an important button because it’s also how you time parries, which regenerates stamina and allows follow-up attacks when pulled off. The parry window is quite narrow in Blades of Fire, but it varies from enemy to enemy how easy it is to pull off.

Since melee weapons are the only offensive option for Aran, it’s only natural each weapon fulfills different roles. Close to a dozen different weapon types exist in the game, from greatswords to daggers to polearms. Obviously, a large hammer doesn’t pierce an enemy the same way a dagger does. This leads to the three types of damage in the game: pierce, slash, and blunt.

You can switch between these damage types during combat, though some weapons only feature one type (like a club only having blunt). The really cool thing is each of the damage types has its own damage values that get progressively diminished with weapon wear. The solution to this is mid-battle sharpening, which spruces up the weapon’s damage values as good as if it were new. Only problem with sharpening is it further diminishes that weapon’s overall durability.

"You can switch between these damage types during combat, though some weapons only feature one type (like a club only having blunt)."

Again, I generally don’t like weapon durability in games, but the way this heightens weapon strategy, whether to use pierce or slash or hotkey in another weapon entirely, is engaging. Oh yeah, and each enemy is weak to different attack types, as you might imagine. Heavily armored foes typically don’t flinch at small daggers, while the speed and slash damage from daggers completely decimate the more  bestial foes. Despite the exclusive focus on melee weapons, Blades of Fire does a good job varying up its combat toybox, at least for a good while.

By the mid-point of the game, I yearned for a long-range option of some kind. Either that or some way to inflict status ailments or do something, anything, other than just swing armaments. Still, for a game solely focused on swinging armaments, there’s some impressive variety and depth here, though it may not be for everyone.

Of course, every weapon costs a certain amount of materials, some which are more rare than others. While I never felt the need to go out and farm materials to get by, I did have to farm for broken weapons occasionally. My favorite weapon just happened to break in the middle of a difficult boss fight. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and just switching weapons, or forging a completely new one, I went to the location of the weapon’s materials were and farmed them. If you grow attached to a weapon, you can always farm materials to get it back. At least the game’s menus and map make the material gathering process a bit more convenient.

"My main issues with the map are its lack of altitude and terrain distinction."

Each location on the map shows the ingredients that can be found there. It also indicates points of interest like anvils and mission markers (if you choose to turn them on). Custom markers also exist in case you find something cool that’s just out of reach. My main issues with the map are its lack of altitude and terrain distinction. Furthermore, there’s no distinction of different floors within buildings, rendering the map useless for navigation in these situations.

The main source of my map dismay comes from the level design itself. Areas can be difficult to navigate, with branching routes twisting and contorting in wild directions. I consider myself savvy when it comes to in-game navigation, thanks to all the open-world games of late, and this game confused the heck out of me multiple times with its level design.

There’s poor visual distinction between routes in a given region and very little guidance in general. I’m not clamoring for the equivalent of yellow paint, but can there at least be some visual language leading me to a point of interest? The lack of interesting landmarks in the world also contribute to the messy and tangled level design a bit, though some areas do boast impressive draw distances of past zones, rare though they are.

"While the routes within a region get repetitive and samey pretty quick, the regions themselves feel distinct and unique from each other."

While the routes within a region get repetitive and samey pretty quick, the regions themselves feel distinct and unique from each other. The swamplands of the south feel appropriately humid and wild while the indoor labyrinth of the Crimson Fort gives the feeling of faded nobility. Still, the individual regions themselves felt just a tad longwinded without enough variation, suffering from confusing layouts. The layout of one region is so bad, it requires a tour guide of sorts who signals the way forward, which leads to another gripe I have: escort companions.

The tour guide example is especially egregious because the player must actually wait in an area for him to initiate the way forward. You can imagine how frustrating it is to wait for some old geyser to remember the way forward in this game, shorter though the wait period may be. And this tour guide is with you the entire way through a region too; it’s not just a one-time gimmick. But that’s not all, there’s other escort levels on top of the tour guide one. In one indoor region, you must keep a NPC safe as he clings to your back through the entire zone. Enemies will knock him off and abduct him, requiring you to rescue him before ultimately progressing. What’s more, the NPC cries in a way that gave me Yoshi’s Island flashbacks of baby Mario.

"In one indoor region, you must keep a NPC safe as he clings to your back through the entire zone."

In isolation, escort sections don’t always end up bad, but this game has a bit of a trash mob problem. Maps are littered with common enemies, and they’re typically always grouped up. This isn’t a problem in Dynasty Warriors style games where batches of enemies can be felled in a single scoop, but this game goes for more decidedly methodical combat. Sure, if you pick the perfect weapon and have it sharpened, you can kill plenty of enemies in one hit, especially on the easier difficulties, but it requires proper set-up and excellent timing. By definition, a trash mob shouldn’t require perfect gameplay execution to obliterate.

The high encounter rate is further compounded by the level navigation issues and escort demands, making for a frustrating experience when all of these issues are present. And before you say “git gud”, I don’t mind going through these mobs once or twice, but farming for materials or retrieving lost weapons makes them irritatingly redundant.

By contrast, there’s nothing but positive things to say about the boss fights. Bosses are where enemy weak parts and limb detachment gets its proper due. The first area has a roaming troll boss that can actually re-grow its detached head, requiring swift DPS to finish it before that happens. Some bosses also have a couple phases to them. Nothing fancy or super cinematic in that regard, but the change-up in mechanics lends the fights more interesting than they would’ve been. Some bosses shoot out bullet hell style projectiles, which are fun to maneuver around despite the lack of a jump.

And each boss and enemy in the game has their own extensive bestiary entry. Heck, each grade of steel has its own entry, just to illustrate how detailed Adso’s journal is.

"Adso’s Chronicles are filled to the  brim with world lore and character portraits, all from the perspective of your companion"

Speaking of Adso, he can be sent away to the camp should you tire of his banter. And his does admittedly get tiring. He’s constantly complaining, and should you wait around for too long, oh boy will you here about how bored he is (despite the game making you wait during certain sections). He fulfills his gameplay purpose well though, completing entries on monsters, which grants new Forger Scrolls and ultimately new weapons.

And Adso always has new insights into every area you visit, but his banter can get old quick. The other supporting cast is hit or miss as well. Aran meets some pretty outlandish folk, including a ghost gravedigger, and you have to babysit half of them through escort sections, which is a shame.

But at least a majority of the characters have good voice acting. Not excellent, almost great, but certainly good. The amount of voice lines in the game is pretty impressive, though it’s the music that particularly impresses me. The way the music dynamically shifts throughout the experience means it never feels stale or repetitive. And despite the frequency of mob battles, I never tired of the warlike drums accompanying these skirmishes. The instruments also sound wonderfully rich and diverse, accompanying the environments well.

"Blades of Fire really does look and sound like a AAA title despite its more AA status."

Not that the environments even need the extra boost in atmosphere, as graphically impressive as they are. Yes, levels can feel repetitive after a bit, but darn do they look brilliant. There’s just so much detail behind each texture and object, not to mention the amount of little pots and pieces of furniture you can smash and get materials from. Blades of Fire really does look and sound like a AAA title despite its more AA status.

The in-game cinematics demonstrate this quality amply, with unique character animations and smart camera usage for every movement. Yet despite the attractive cinematics and in-depth lore of the game, I couldn’t get into the plot as much as I wanted to. The setting just felt a bit too devoid of people to properly care about. Did I want to see Aran and Adso succeed and save the world? I guess? I do like Aran as a character, stoic, if not somewhat generic as he is.

But I never felt particularly invested in any character enough to truly care what happens to them. The whole setting is meant to feel like a fairy tale and it does. Yet, it lacks either the dark mystery or the fanciful whimsy to get me excited about it. For plenty of folks, the story of the Aran and Adso’s journey to defeat the evil queen will be enough of a hook to get them through, and it barely was for me, and maybe that’s enough.

Blades of Fire is a unique take on this particular brand of action RPG. The forging mechanics are wonderful and I hope to see more games get players as connected to their weapons as this game, and that’s saying a lot for a game with durability. It’s not without its faults, but Blades of Fire comes recommended if you’re a fan of melee sword combat, which I assume a lot of us are.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Dread not only has to prove that it still has something to bring to the genre its own series pioneered, but it also has to do so while being under intense scrutiny – scrutiny from Metroid fans, jilted as they are after a decade of disappointment frontended by arguably the most controversial major Nintendo release of all time in Other M. And scrutiny from those who wonder what a full priced 2D Metroidvania can truly do to justify its existence in a market where there are so many incredible titles to be had for a fraction of the price. After so long away from this series, and with Dread co-developed by a studio that has had a bumpy track record, the existential question that comes to mind is – can Nintendo actually still make a good Metroid game?

The answer is yes, yes they can, and yes they have. It is really rare to play a game that is as surefooted as Metroid Dread is. Metroid Dread is spectacular, a tour de force in all that Metroid has done well and in things it barely attempted before, both at once, and a culmination of three and a half decades of 2D Metroid, pulling from the best of every game that came before it to deliver a game that stands at the peak of the series and its genre. While there may be many who will prefer Super Metroid or Hollow Knight (and they have good enough reason to, those games are amazing), Dread at the very least breaks into the same company as those legendary stalwarts of the genre.

You wouldn’t know that this is a two decade belated sequel with this much baggage behind it – it puts its best foot forward to wow the player from the go, and then never lets up. It’s actually almost weird playing Metroid Dread – 2D AAA games aren’t exactly a common thing these days (no publisher except Nintendo really attempts them, and even Nintendo hasn’t put out a new one in the better part of a decade at this point), so it can actually take you by surprise with just how high end it is, and how clearly big budget the production values are. Dread looks amazing, running at a blistering (and, surprisingly, almost entirely steady) 60 frames per second, dripping with polish baked into its amazing visuals and incredible sound design, and a surprisingly cinematic flair that it uses to set the stakes for its story with some top notch storytelling that feels extremely unlike Nintendo.

"Metroid Dread is spectacular, a tour de force in all that Metroid has done well and in things it barely attempted before, both at once, and a culmination of three and a half decades of 2D Metroid, pulling from the best of every game that came before it to deliver a game that stands at the peak of the series and its genre."

That storytelling actually deserves credit – as mentioned previously, Metroid is actually one singular story running through the original Metroid game released 35 years ago, all the way through to Dread, which is the conclusion. And Dread does that heady duty of concluding the single longest running singular narrative arc in the medium justice. While most of the game is content to get out of the player’s way and let them explore the world at their own pace, there are multiple occasions when Dread goes all in on its storytelling.

These segments are excellent, with some impressive cinematics and thoroughly impressive characterization for series protagonist Samus Aran achieved almost entirely through her body language and animations. Where Other M once reduced Samus’ character to a collection of tropes that barely resembled the fearless and stoic bounty hunter players had come to love, Dread effortlessly and wordlessly rehabilitates her, turning her right back into the badass we know her to be.

Animations in the game in general deserve a lot of credit, because the staggering attention to detail that has gone into them is amazing. The fluidity of Samus’ movements, along with her reactions to the environments and enemies around her, really help sell not just the story and storytelling, but also the actual gameplay and how Samus engages with the new world she finds herself in – and ultimately, that last bit is, after all, what one plays a Metroid game for.

And what a world it is! Metroid Dread may be one of the greatest paced games of all time, and it achieves that almost entirely through its world design and nothing else. The game is a masterclass at gently guiding and funnelling the player through the critical path, while doing it so subtly that most players won’t even realize their decisions are being made for them. The world starts out relatively simple and linear, but as Samus amasses more and more of her abilities, it opens up like a piñata, offering a dizzying amount of options as to where to go. Each new area gets recontextualized by the new movement and combat options you have, making areas that may have felt inaccessible before – whether due to obstacles you couldn’t deal with, environmental considerations you couldn’t handle, mobility you were incapable of, or enemies you had no way of taking on – your playground.

This is an amazing map – definitely the biggest one in the series, and probably the most varied one as well, offering a whole gamut of environments, from forests, lava caverns, aquatic, subterranean, to some more imaginative ones that tie directly into the story and lore of the game and which are best discovered by the player for themselves. It spiders outwards and spirals in on itself, creating a maze of passages and caverns that can seem almost overwhelming at first – I know the first time I saw the map of just the first area, I felt taken aback – but then making it feel almost effortless to traverse and navigate it, as Samus Aran slowly masters the world around her and regains the peak of her powers.

While it starts out by being fairly guided, always nudging the player in the right direction, the deeper into what ZDR has to offer you get, the more sprawling it gets, and the more it rewards the player who is willing to let their curiosity get the best of them and use their powers in areas and ways that the game may not have explicitly told them to. The power ups you get in Metroid Dread never get as wildly imaginative as in some other games in the genre, but their execution and implementation in the world is so sublime and unusual in and of itself that it more than makes up for that.

Metroid Dread is actually of the same school of design as Super Mario Odyssey or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are, in that it places player agency paramount and centerstage. This is a game with a lot of respect for the player, and it empowers that player to figure things out for themselves, and then reward them for it. Sequence breaking is built into the very DNA of Metroid Dread, and you can end up doing things out of order, or in ways that you would never expect would work – but that the developers had already accounted for, and end up rewarding you for. That it manages to do this while still guiding the players who might actually need more concrete direction is incredible – it’s a very fine needle to thread, and few games manage to do it successfully. Even fewer manage to do it as well as Metroid Dread does.

"This is a game with a lot of respect for the player, and it empowers that player to figure things out for themselves, and then reward them for it. Sequence breaking is built into the very DNA of Metroid Dread, and you can end up doing things out of order, or in ways that you would never expect would work – but that the developers had already accounted for, and end up rewarding you for."

A large amount of credit for this has to go to the sheer QoL functionality Dread is packing, most of which is built into its in-game map. This is, without doubt, the best mapping system in any Metroidvania game ever. It maps out the expanses and borders of every place you go to, identifies power ups you haven’t picked up, identifies what kind of barrier stops you from getting those power ups (if any), labels the specific power up you need to get past that barrier once you have it, lets you isolate roadblocks and obstacles that can be cleared with a certain power up (to let you figure out where to go next after you get a new upgrade), lets you set markers that constantly display on your minimap and help you orient yourself without needing to repeatedly open up the full map, and, perhaps most importantly – forces absolutely none of this on you.

If you don’t want or need this information, you can ignore all of it. If you just want to explore the world at your own pace, without needing anything even resembling overt guidance on where you might be expected to be next, you can literally never open up the map and you’ll be fine. Dread’s world is incredibly well designed, and other than a couple of occasions, manages to intuitively telegraph what it expects from the player effortlessly. The map is for those who need or want it – and those who do will find it to be a potent tool to add to their arsenal.

The actual act of exploring Planet ZDR is a joy. No Metroid game ever has controlled better than Dread does, and that is saying something, because this series includes Zero Mission, which is considered by many to be among the best controlling games of all time. It’s a joy to simply move as Samus, especially once more of her classic movement options get unlocked. I won’t name all of them here, but the combination of things such as the speed boost, the shine spark, the space jump, and the grapple (all of which return), alongside new movement options such as the ability to phase great distances horizontally, make for a game where the simple act of movement is pleasurable.

Combat holds up its end of the bargain too – Metroid games have traditionally never really emphasized combat. Even the first person Metroid Prime games completely deemphasized combat and kept the focus squarely on exploration. This changed when MercurySteam took over the series and gave us Samus Returns, which put a lot of focus on combat by giving Samus new abilities (such as a melee counter and a 360º free aim), and pairing it with some of the most demanding enemies in the series. Metroid Dread continues down this road, and delivers the most exacting and tense combat the series has seen – and indeed, some of the best combat in this genre, period.

The 360º free aim and the melee counter both return (though the latter now doesn’t need you to stop moving and bait the enemy into a parry, and can be used while moving), alongside a frankly ridiculous arsenal of firepower that Samus slowly regains over the course of the game. These abilities can also be used in conjunction with Samus’ movement options (such as the aforementioned phasing ability), which allows for some of the most kinetic combat the series has seen.

It’s good that Samus has so much firepower, because she will really need it in ZDR. Metroid Dread is an incredibly difficult games. Enemies hit hard, and while you’re unlikely to die via regular trash mobs, when it comes to the bosses, you’re in for a whole lot of pain.

These bosses are amazing – some of the best designed bosses in the genre, with some incredible movesets and encounter design that puts the player’s mastery of combat and movement abilities to an exacting test. Bosses hit hard, and they punish any sloppiness on the player’s part, meaning that if you’re not paying attention, you will die. And die a lot. Honestly, you’re probably going to be dying a lot anyway.

In spite of how hard bosses hit, and how much damage they can take, they never feel unfair, and this comes down to a lot of things. One is the very simple fact that each boss telegraphs its own attacks and openings very clearly and distinctly. A lot of the challenge in these fights is down to understanding how the boss will attack, when a certain attack is coming, and how that can be avoided or countered. As you understand the patterns, you slowly find yourself getting further into the fight on every single try – visible progress that makes it clear that you’re not just banging your head against a wall, and that you’re actually getting somewhere.

"That this masterclass in mechanical prowess and game design is backed up by some surprisingly high production values (of the kind you never expect in a 2D game in this day and age) only helps to pull Metroid Dread together into a superlative package."

The challenge is also kept really fair by the game’s excellent checkpointing. Metroid Dread has amazing checkpointing, meaning that when you die, you start almost exactly where you left off. This means that dying to a boss, for example, doesn’t knock you back to an old save point, and doesn’t require you to repeat an area of the game you have already gotten through. Unlike so many other challenging games, both within and outside this genre, Dread doesn’t want to waste your time repeating content you clearly already mastered, it wants you to try your hand at the skill check you are failing until you become better enough to be able to take it on and triumph. This means that when you die, you jump back in exactly where you did with no downtime. This takes the sting out of your deaths – the game over screen barely registers as an inconvenience, when you can jump right back in and resume where you left off, after all.

Between the abilities at Samus’ disposal, and the QoL on offer, Dread manages to be an extremely tough and challenging game (one that feels empowering when you finally triumph over its challenges) without ever being unfair or tedious.

This extends to the game’s big showpiece addition, the EMMI sequences, as well. The EMMI are stalker robots that, upon detecting Samus, chase her relentlessly unless she manages to escape and break line of sight, and if they catch up with her, end up in what is almost always guaranteed to be a one hit kill. EMMIs are confined to certain areas on the map, and you as the player are always aware of what those areas are, and where their entries and exits are. This means that traversing an EMMI zone ends up becoming a stealth puzzle of sorts – it’s you balancing the optimum route with the least possible chances of detection, and windows of escape if you do get detected.

They’re tense, but they never outstay their welcome, because they’re always broken up by the surrounding world. You never spend more than a couple minutes in an EMMI zone – usually you have to cross it to get to the other side of the map, pick up whatever you need, and then back again, and so on. This means they remain tense, but never excessive – and even for the unfortunate players who do end up caught by the EMMIs often, having to watch Samus die repeatedly, the frustration is minimal, because you’re respawned right outside the EMMI zone, with no loss of progress.

And, again, that this masterclass in mechanical prowess and game design is backed up by some surprisingly high production values (of the kind you never expect in a 2D game in this day and age) only helps to pull Metroid Dread together into a superlative package. As mentioned, the game looks stunning, thanks to some of the best technical visuals on the Switch paired with a very strong art style that truly helps sell the distinct areas of the world you are in, the creatures that populate them, and the history behind it all, giving it a sense of place that is crucial to a successful Metroidvania.

These visuals are paired with some surprisingly strong sound design too – Dread is one of the rare Switch games that utilizes a full surround setup, and it uses it incredibly well, whether it be the ominous beeping that heralds an EMMI closing in on you, or just the background noise in the environment that helps tell the tale of this slowly dying world that you are interloping on. Metroid Dread uses some great environmental music to perpetuate this sound design and aural storytelling as well, and while some of the new melodies aren’t going to be classics in the way that the Planet Brinstar theme (for example) was, this is more than made up for by just how effective at setting the atmosphere the environmental ambient music is (as well as some killer remixes of some of the classic melodies that fans of the series have come to know and love).

Metroid Dread is a triumph. It’s a masterclass in game design, packed with a staggering amount of attention to detail and a consideration for the player that is rare to see – while also constantly challenging its player, daring them to push back, and then rewarding them when it does. It melds a level of production value and overt storytelling that is rare to see in this genre, rare to see in a 2D game, and unusual to see coming from Nintendo. Metroid Dread may have been a 20 year wait, but it was more than worth it. Samus is back, and she is still at the top of her game, now more than ever.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

It looks like our report yesterday regarding Just Cause possibly coming to Xbox One via the backward compatibility program was correct. Just Cause has indeed been confirmed to be one of the games headlining the newest batch of titles being added to the service today by Microsoft, as confirmed by Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb on Twitter,.

But Just Cause isn’t the only big game being added this time around, either—in fact, unusually enough, all four of the games that are included in this batch are arguably “big”. Alongside Just Cause, the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow trilogy—so the two numbered games, and Mirror of Fate HD—will also now be playable on Xbox One. While Lords of Shadow 2 and Mirror of Fate HD were pretty disappointing, the original Lords of Shadow was a great and compelling reboot despite its flaws, and fans of the series should take this opportunity to look into it.

As is always the case, all these games can now be purchased on the Xbox Store on Xbox One directly.

https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/1057301141980033024?s=21

And yet, the almost knowingly self-awarely titled Samus Returns ends up living up to mostly all the expectations that lead into it. Samus Returns is a smart, slickly made 2D Metroid game that channels all of the best elements of the franchise, while introducing its own subtle tweaks and evolution to them. The end result is a game that feels comfortably familiar, exceptionally modern, and more than appropriate as the game that heralds what we hope will be a new era for the Metroid franchise.

Samus Returns is, as mentioned, a remake of the second game in the franchise, Metroid 2: Return of Samus. While the title has garnered a cult following in recent years, it has long been held to be the black sheep of the franchise- mostly because of its starkly alien gameplay, as well as all the limitations and constraints imposed on it by it being on the Gameboy. However, “remake” is almost inappropriate a term here- Samus Returns essentially takes the story and the basic framework of that Gameboy game, and then retools and reworks it into something all of its own. The most analogous to it, I feel, would be The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and the relationship that that game shared with the SNES classic A Link to the Past.

"Samus Returns is a smart, slickly made 2D Metroid game that channels all of the best elements of the franchise, while introducing its own subtle tweaks and evolution to them."

So here you have a game that feels familiar- it has the same basic map, the same basic structure of hunting down Metroids in the depths of SR-38, while working your way ever lower into its caverns, and some of the same story beats. But the map has been expanded beyond belief, to the point that many locations are barely recognizable at all, the story is retooled (to tie into Super Metroid better, as well as to hint at the future of the franchise), and most of the mechanics are all new.

A lot of these mechanics may almost seem to be controversial at first—for instance, there is a counter mechanic, which lets Samus strike back physically at any enemy rushing at her, momentarily stunning them, and letting her get an easy kill. For many, this might be anathema—and yet, it works wonderfully in context of the flow and pacing of the game and its moment to moment gameplay, as well as our understanding of Samus as a swift, agile, unstoppable bounty hunter. It actively alters the pace and flow of the game—you must stop to be able to counter, and countering can give you far easier kills than shooting at enemies will. Moreover, to compensate for your counter, enemies themselves are far more aggressive, too. But the end result is a far more involved and kinetic Metroid, one in which the palpable dread of exploring a hostile alien world never quite leaves you, simply because of how aggressive everything around you seems to be, demanding split second reactions from you.

The counter, however, settles into the flow of classic 2D Metroid really well, and most fans who go into the game with an open mind will likely end up loving it, to the point that they will now expect it in every 2D Metroid game going forwards. Far more divisive are likely to be the Aeon abilities- these are all new powers Samus gets, which are far more powerful than standard Metroid fare. One early game one, for instance, lets you get the size of the map for the area you are in, as well as highlighting any bombable walls or tiles around you. There are other, equally powerful abilities waiting for you- and yet, they are balanced extremely well, so as to never be game breaking. All Aeon abilities are governed by the same Aeon meter, and each of them use up a hefty chunk of it. Each ability additionally has a cool down associated with it, so you can’t just spam it. Finally, even when these abilities are used, they just make the game smarter, rather than easier. For instance, rather than having to painstakingly bomb every square inch you see, you now know what you have to bomb- so the game instead makes a challenge out of getting there, which is far more suited to Metroid, anyway.

This is one of those changes that again feels controversial at fist glance, but the more you play it, the more you realize how well it fits into what the series has always been about, and the more you imagine it becoming an integral part of the franchise going forward. While Metroid fans, burnt on the relentless experimentation of the franchise, which brought us games such as Other M and Federation Force, have every right to be wary, they should rest assured that these abilities are sensible additions to the series’ repertoire of mechanics, rather than being pointless gimmicks.

Other changes are more subtle—for instance, Samus now has the ability to shoot in any direction, thanks to the analog control the 3DS affords, which is a welcome addition. The map, as previously mentioned, is hugely expanded, but the expansions are all smart, and in keeping with the spirit of the franchise, giving us the best caverns Metroid has given us to explore in a 2D entry this side of Super Metroid. They are complemented by some incredible atmosphere- Metroid: Samus Returns looks utterly fantastic. While the faux-3D look might seem like an initial turn-off, it looks glorious in motion on the 3DS screen, and details such as dripping water, and wildlife moving in the backdrops of the level as you make your way through the foreground, all add to the impression of a hostile alien world that does not care for you, and will in fact actively work to eliminate you, should you let it.

"This incredible map with its gorgeous graphics is accompanied by some of the best music the Metroid series has seen."

This incredible map with its gorgeous graphics is accompanied by some of the best music the Metroid series has seen- and that is saying something. Eerie, gloomy, oppressive, and with some impressive callbacks to previous games in the franchise, the soundtrack is instrumental to Samus Returns feeling as powerfully haunting as it does, and is undoubtedly a standout.

For as well as Samus Returns pulls off most things it attempts, there are a few warts that stick out, however—for instance, the Metroid battles are, by necessity, repetitive. You are going to end up taking on forty of these creatures, and while the game tries to keep things fresh by mixing up arenas, abilities, and throwing in some unique hooks to each fight (not to mention the evolution of Metroids as you fight more and more of them), a good half of them end up feeling far too samey, and utterly unremarkable. It is a shame, and it is definitely a problem that Samus Returns has inherited from Return of Samus.

Other issues exist, too, albeit they are far more minor—controls are a bit perplexing for some of the abilities (and, as is usually the vase with Nintendo, no, you do not get the option to remap them), and while the game runs swimmingly on New 3DS models, the base model and its variants definitely see some slowdown.

But these are largely minor blemishes on an otherwise superlative game. Metroid: Samus Returns is a triumphant return to form for the franchise, and the kind of 2D Metroid game fans of the series have been waiting for for the better part of a decade now. It is a resounding redemption for series’ leader Sakamoto, who found himself in the doghouse with fans after Other M, and for Mercury Steam, who have borne the ire of many a Castlevania fan for their handling of the Lord of Shadow games. And most importantly, it is every bit an equal to the games that came before it, and a worthy addition to the top tier of the Metroid pantheon. It’s a welcome back party for Samus Aran—but its greatest victory is that it makes it feel as though Samus never left to begin with.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo 3DS.

The one thing that has always characterized Metroid has been its approach to power ups- they are hidden and tucked away around the world, and as you get more of them, you gain new abilities, letting you access more of the world (and therefore, more power ups in turn). It’s one of the most satisfying gameplay and structural loops in gaming- and it is enhanced, if not outright better than ever before, in Metroid: Samus Returns, too.

There are, of course, a lot of power ups and collectibles to find in Metroid: Samus Returns. A lot of these are optional (missile ammo expansions, and the like), but some of them can be essential. But no matter what the importance of a collectible is, if it is in this game, the video below shows you how to get it- all collectibles, needed for your 100% progression.

Just remember, however- there will be severe spoilers (at least location spoilers) in this video. So make sure you’re not jumping ahead of where you are in the game.

This year marks the long awaited return of everyone’s favorite space faring bounty hunter Samus Aran. Starring in the appropriately named Samus Returns, the game is a throwback to the Gameboy title Metroid 2: Return of Samus, and it is exactly what the doctor ordered for the ailing franchise- a return to form with the kind of old school Metroivania action platforming that made the series so big to begin with.

But apart from the Metroidvania style progression, the Metroid series has always also been known for its frankly spectacular boss battles- and Metroid: Samus Returns is no exception in that regard. In fact, it has some truly frightening and imaginative boss battles, including undoubtedly one of the hardest ones in series history.

If you need help with defeating any bosses, we’re here to help- this video guide below will walk you through every single boss, and show you how they are beaten. Just remember- there are spoilers here, so maybe don’t try and skip ahead of where you already are in the game.

https://youtu.be/qSsCImO8kp0

Mercury Steam may have just launched Metroid: Samus Returns for the Nintendo 3DS, but their next major release, Raiders of the Broken Planet, is already almost here as well. Ahead of its release, the studio is confirming that the game will support cross-platform play- Xbox One and Windows 10 users will be able to play with each other, as well as PS4 and Steam users.

Mercury Steam has also confirmed to WCCFTech that they are expecting a greenlight from Microsoft to enable Steam-Xbox One-Windows 10 cross platform play in the future–meaning that Sony will be left out as the odd man out yet again, due to them not agreeing to PS4 and Xbox One cross platform play.

That aside, if you are the more technically inclined, you will be happy to know that the Xbox One X runs the game at 1440p resolution, with a target performance of 60fps, while the PS4 Pro runs the game at 1260p resolution with the same targeted framerate. Raiders of the Broken Planet launches later this month on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Nintendo and Mercury Steam are about to release Metroid: Samus Returns, the long awaited return of Nintendo’s beloved fan favorite franchise on the 3DS later this week. The game has already received rave reviews, and it seems like Samus’ long awaited comeback was pulled off with aplomb by developers Mercury Steam.

But that last part is something that has puzzled many- after all, Mercury Steam’s work prior to Samus Returns has been divisive at best. How did they manage to pull this off? Would it be right to credit Nintendo’s guiding hand for this result?

Yes, as it turns out- in fact, Mercury Steam’s studio head, Enric Alvarez, himself admitted as much a recent interview with Gamesindustry.

“Nintendo is a one-of-a-kind publisher that make one-of-a-kind games”, Alvarez said. “They’re special. They are unique. They care about games. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that after two years, 80 or 90% of all the conversations we’ve had were about stuff that gamers care about. Only the remaining 10 or 20% were about business or usual publishing stuff. That ratio is unique to Nintendo. When you deal with them at a close distance, you understand why they are who they are. I’m not going to lie to you; they are extremely demanding. They require the very best constantly, all the time, and beyond. But it’s been a great experience.”

“We’ve worked in the past with other publishers, with Codemasters, with Konami, and they were very different experiences. We had a great experience with Konami, but Nintendo is another thing. There are many, many Nintendo fans who don’t like any other games except for their games. Now I fully understand why that is. It has been a pleasure, we have learnt a lot. Honestly, they have made us a better developer.”

Of course, Nintendo has an exacting standard for quality, and an immense passion for games- after all, that is why they are the best developers in the world, and have consistently retained that position for three decades now. It makes sense that they would demand nothing less than third party partners that they work with as well.

Metroid: Samus Returns launches on September 15 exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS.

Mercury Steam’s Raiders of the Broken Planet will be releasing on Xbox One, PS4 and PC but it will be available later this month in a rather interesting way. The Prologue will be free to download and offer two missions so players can get a grasp on the multiplayer 4v1 action that it promises. Subsequent episodes will expand on the story further.

However, Raiders of the Broken Planet will also make use of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One. It’s interesting when you consider that not all games on the PS4 Pro don’t support native 4K (mostly checkerboard 4K) while more and more games for the Xbox One X have shown signs of native 4K support.

Both consoles’  CPUs are fairly dated compared to the latest PC technology so what is Mercury Steam doing to ensure a desirable resolution on both platforms? Is it dynamic 4K based on load balancing, checkerboarding or something else for the sake of a steady 60 FPS?

Mercury Steam’s Dave Cox responded that, “Our premise is to always offer the best possible gaming experience to the players. That’s why we have chosen to use that extra power to ensure a maximum fluidity, aiming for 60fps with only slight drops at points with significant graphic stress.  A high FPS is vital for such a fast-paced game. Aiming for native 4K resolution, even making use of checkerboard, would have stuck us at 30 fps.”

“In any case, both Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro will have resolutions escalated above 1080p and improved fps rate.”

As for how difficult it is to juggle between different graphics APIs especially when the Xbox One and Xbox One X use DirectX 12 while the PS4 and PS4 Pro use a custom API, Cox said that, “API differences aren’t too significant between platforms. The best part of the code is generic, with the exception of some critical parts that are specific to each platform, that needed to be paid extra attention to get the most out of them.”

Raiders of the Broken Planet – Prologue arrives on September 22nd for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.