Metroid Dread

Moderate overall intensity
Highest flag: Horror & psychological — frightening
AdventurePlatformerSci-fi

What's in it

Horror & psychological frightening
Moderate

Stealth sequences pit the player against relentless E.M.M.I. robots that hunt Samus through enclosed zones, building tension and dread with instant-death captures if she is caught.

Violence cartoon/stylized
Low

Stylized sci-fi combat in which the player shoots beams and missiles at alien creatures, bosses, and robots; enemies burst apart and there is occasional mild blood, with no realistic gore.

Dark themes mild
Low

The plot involves the genocide of a scientific tribe and a plan to weaponize a dangerous parasite species to conquer the galaxy.

Who can reach your kid

What it is

Metroid Dread casts one player as bounty hunter Samus Aran, guiding her across a side-scrolling alien world where fresh gear and powers open passages that were previously sealed off. The fighting carries a science-fiction tone: Samus fires her weapon and strikes at creatures, parasites, and robots that have been turned against her, and she takes on oversized bosses that bleed and are wrecked in view, though the game shows no human gore, splattered blood, or severed limbs. One defining element places Samus in nerve-wracking hidden-movement stretches, where all-but-unkillable E.M.M.I. units hunt her within specific regions; being caught triggers an abrupt, startling execution sequence. Grimmer subject matter surfaces in the plot — an alien tribe wiped out, a scheme to raise a hazardous parasite for use as a living weapon, and acts of treachery — conveyed largely by way of spoken lines and cutscenes. The title contains no sexual material, nudity, coarse language, drugs or alcohol, or purchases, and it runs completely offline without any chat or connected play.

How it's framed

Samus stands alone as the figure who probes and endures a dangerous world; the violence appears as fighting meant to stay alive and finish an assignment, while the weightier narrative points arrive plainly through storytelling instead of receiving lingering, graphic attention.

Details

Developer
MercurySteam and Nintendo EPD
Publisher
Nintendo
Released
2021-10-08
Metacritic 88critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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