Metroid Dread Director argues in favor of Samus losing her abilities

A staple of the Metroid series since it’s inception is Samus amassing a large arsenal of weapons and tools that she can use to eliminate foes and explore alien planets, and another staple is the fact that she loses most if not all these abilities by the time the next game rolls around.

The way she loses her powers varies, sometimes an explosion slams her into a wall damaging her suits components, sometimes an alien parasite infects her suit rendering it useless, and sometimes it just isn’t explained at all. Nevertheless, it’s practically guaranteed you won’t be starting Metroid Prime 4 with the Power Bombs or Space Jump already at your disposal. This does beg the question though, does Samus need to lose her abilities for the Metroid Games to work? According to Metroid Dread’s Director José Luis Márquez via an interview with Gamereactor, yes she does.

Márquez goes on to elaborate on his other design preferences for Metroid-vanias, for example he believes the gameplay thrives best with a shorter total playtime. He goes on to elaborate that a more compact experience can still leave a player satisfied and that a longer playtime runs the risk of introducing filler into the game. Considering the Metroid series encourages the player to speed run the game on subsequent playthroughs we can certainly see where he’s coming from.

He then goes on to add that he personally isn’t a fan of including Souls-like elements in Metroid-vania titles. While he understands the appeal for some players he claims that he is “not one of those who likes to make it hard for the players.” which is ironic considering how much Metroid Dread was praised for it’s difficulty at the time of release.

What are your thoughts on all these ideas? Does Samus need to lose her abilities for a Metroid game to work? Should the series consider pushing for a longer runtime or dabble with souls-like elements? Let us know in the comments below.