Metroid Turns 40: Best Samus Aran Games to Revisit on Its Anniversary
With Metroid celebrating its 40th anniversary on August 6, 2026, it’s a great time to revisit Samus Aran’s most important adventures—and to remember that even after decades, the series still sets the standard for exploration-driven action. While Metroid Prime 4 has not turned into the outcome many hoped for, the long-running legacy of 2D and 3D hunting remains remarkably influential, constantly shaping how players experience “metroidvania” style worlds and how developers structure side-scrolling discovery, upgrades, and pressure-filled atmosphere.
Samus Aran’s best games, ranked
Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991) kicks off the list with its handheld pedigree: it was the first portable entry in the franchise. Developed for the Game Boy’s extremely limited color palette, it still managed to add more detail to Samus’s sprites and her enemies. Its development direction shifted away from the original’s frequent back-and-forth between zones, replacing it with a more linear flow—Samus had to clear every Metroid from an area before moving on—yet exploration stayed central thanks to optional supplies like life upgrades and missiles hidden along the way. The game also introduced the spatial jump, the Arachnosphere, and save stations, making it a notably unusual entry that frames Samus as an outright hunter tasked with exterminating Metroids on SR388, the species’ home planet. There, the conflict evolves from simple threat into something more complex, as the Metroid’s life cycle becomes part of the story’s larger focus.
In 1986, the original Metroid proved why the franchise became a blueprint for the genre. Even with later titles refining mechanics, the first game still nails the playable loop: enter Zebes, search non-linearly for upgrades to the cannon and suit, backtrack to earlier areas using new abilities, and take on iconic bosses including Braid and Ridley. The experience is also defined by its demanding difficulty and its refusal to hold your hand—there’s no map menu, forcing you to rely on memory. Beyond the structure, the game’s alien setting holds up through its more ethereal look on NES hardware, its color contrasts against the constantly present black backgrounds, the way its strange enemies pressure you, and a soundtrack that shifts from early action energy into unsettling tension as you progress. It isn’t just a lesson in metroidvania design—it’s an alien-world masterclass.
Metroid: Samus Returns (2017) takes the Return of Samus premise and updates it for modern expectations. It’s a remake of the Game Boy entry that originally opened the list’s storyline, and it retains the SR388 Metroid-hunting setup while adding new tools to reduce the structural limitations of its predecessor. MercurySteam rebuilt the planet in three dimensions to give depth to backgrounds and highlight the stereoscopic effect of the handheld version, then expanded far beyond the visuals. Level design received substantial changes for greater scale and more satisfying exploration, introducing items such as the grappling beam and energy bombs that were not part of the original Game Boy release. Combat evolved with free aiming and a counter technique that lets you repel enemy attacks and strike back. The game also introduced Aeion abilities—tools for scanning environments, creating defensive shields, slowing enemies, or increasing offensive capacity at the cost of consuming resources tracked by a dedicated meter. The result is a modern balance between old-school restraint and contemporary comfort, demonstrating that side-scrolling Metroid still has room decades after its start.
Metroid: Zero Mission (2004) is a remake built on the series’ own origin, developed for GBA with the lessons learned from Metroid Fusion. It’s still the most recent installment that sticks to 2D graphics, and that shows in the precision of its environments and enemies. As a story update, it recontextualizes the NES mission as Samus’s true starting point—reflected directly in the title—and expands beyond the defeat of Mother Brain. Instead of the traditional “play without the suit until the end” format, Zero Mission includes a dedicated section where you infiltrate and use the suit you’ll later wear in other games. The core structure follows the original Metroid closely, with enhanced versions of places like Brinstar and Norfair improved with mapping for orientation, plus escalated boss encounters against Kraid and Ridley. At the same time, the game adds new areas, new routes, enemy variations, mini-bosses, and variants of the beam as well as other abilities from later entries, including the spatial jump from Return of Samus, the acceleration from Super Metroid, and Fusion’s ability to grab onto ledges. Even now, it remains one of the best entry points into the series.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007) represents a modern Metroid that still feels surprisingly time-bound in comparison to what came after. Released in 2007, it served as an early flagship for Wii and also as the culmination of the trilogy developed by Retro Studios. Moving from GameCube to Wii limited the kind of obvious technical leap other generations offered, but Retro squeezed the hardware effectively and made extensive use of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. That wasn’t limited to pointing for aiming—it also supported movement-based actions such as activating mechanisms through hand gestures and pulling enemy shields toward you to create variety in how you fight and progress. Still, treating Corruption as merely Metroid Prime with motion controls would miss what it’s really built around. The game’s defining feature is scale: Samus travels between multiple planets while searching for other missing bounty hunters, including the home world of the Space Pirates. Each location is smaller on its own but still packed with carefully designed environments and more action inside each. A major role is given to the ship, which becomes a functional replacement for elevators by letting you choose landing points and reduce backtracking. Corruption also introduces the corruption mechanic that gives you a powerful way to clear enemies at the cost of some life—ending the era with a climax that’s bombastic even if it’s not as deep as what came before.
Metroid Dread (2021) is the standout modern surprise in the middle of the ranking. It wasn’t just notable for its sudden announcement and release—it quickly proved to be one of the best games on Switch. As the first side-scrolling Metroid on a home console since Super Metroid (at least when played in docked mode), it lived up to expectations, even earning recognition as best adventure at The Game Awards. But beyond awards, the most important factor is how it refines the work of MercurySteam from Samus Returns across the board. Dread doesn’t only benefit from better resolution, higher detail, and performance reaching 60 frames per second; it’s also driven by careful animation craft and design. The experience feels far more fluid, layering action on top of action with natural controls: 360-degree aiming, countering, sliding, and aerial dashes allow you to move through larger maps without sacrificing pace. E.M.M.I. robots can kill you instantly and deliver the fear the game promises, while also potentially frustrating players who prefer slower combat. Even when Dread leans back into more classic Metroid structure, it still stands out for its control, exploration that doesn’t always guide you, and bosses that deliver some of the series’ best fights.
Metroid Fusion (2002) shows how the franchise can last 35 years without simply repeating the same formula forever. While it may look superficially similar to Super Metroid or Zero Mission, the GBA entry successfully accomplishes something later Wii release Other M struggled to do: it delivers a more linear structure with heavier narrative weight than its predecessors, while still leaving room for exploration within the boundaries defined by Adam, the computer that provides instructions during the adventure. The game’s space-station setting creates moments of isolation and tension, sometimes brushing up against survival horror through lighting choices and occasional jump-scare energy. It’s also the last entry in the timeline before Dread arrives. Fusion continues Samus’s Metroid extermination mission on SR388 and introduces a new threat: the X parasite, which can thrive after Samus eliminates its predators. That leads to SA-X, a replica of Samus that appears in different points of the game and forces you to hide or flee due to its clear offensive superiority. Between memorable development decisions, frequent twists as you move through familiar spaces, and a steady stream of ambush-like variables, Fusion remains one of the most memorable entries in the series and a favorite among many fans.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004) returns to the Prime universe with another darker mirror of Samus, though not the same one as Fusion. After the events of the first Metroid Prime, Phazon—a mutagenic substance—combines the Metroid’s DNA with Samus’s to create a new kind of creature. Echoes is where Samus and Dark Samus finally confront each other, but their battleground is also filled with trouble: Phazon has been wreaking havoc elsewhere in the galaxy and, in the case of Ether, it cloned the planet itself. That fractured reality produces a parallel dimension known as Dark Ether, with its own species and dangers. The mission isn’t only about moving between areas solving puzzles, collecting abilities, and defeating bosses—it also depends on how progression may require traveling through the lethal, highly toxic replica environment. The air drains your life unless you take cover in special zones to find alternate routes or locate items protected by the Dark Aether race. Echoes is more difficult and more tangled than its predecessor, and some players felt it bordered on being too laborious, but its level design and atmosphere are undeniably among Metroid’s best. Locations like Torvus Swamp and the futuristic Sanctuary Fortress continue to stand out for both design and mood.
Super Metroid (1994) is the 16-bit classic that still acts as a measuring stick for any metroidvania trying to reach the genre’s highest tier. Even when viewed out of context, it’s impressive in how precisely it captures essentials: its spotless setting, the balance between meaningful exploration with freedom and a steady drip of locations, enemies, and abilities that keeps the game engaging. It also shines narratively through restrained use of sequences, dialogue, and scripts—so that Zebes can speak for itself. While other games have surpassed it in graphics, control, or scale, the fact that it comes from its era actually helps it distill the purest version of the formula. It elevates those elements into excellence without wasting energy on distractions. Like Zero Mission, it’s an exponentially improved refinement of the original vision. But almost nothing it lacks compared to later entries is because it was missing ideas at the time—rather, later games had to build other strengths to differentiate. In three decades, no other game has replicated what Super Metroid did for Metroid.
At number one is Metroid Prime (2002), which changes everything in three dimensions. Coming first doesn’t always mean coming out on top, but Prime is the rare exception where Retro Studios nailed such a complete transition that everything since has lived in its shadow. Echoes increased complexity and the number of steps needed for progression, Corruption emphasized faster advancement and plenty of action, while Prime positioned itself as the balanced middle ground: huge, detail-heavy levels with secrets, combined with an agile rhythm that moves you zone to zone in a natural way—at least until the final artifact search, which requires extra backtracking once the core equipment is collected. More than just a great Metroid game, Prime is legendary for how it reinterprets broader ideas and evolves the series into a new perspective. First-person view makes the experience immersive and places you literally inside Samus’s armor, seeing through her eyes. The visor fogs, rain droplets streak your view upward, and enemies splash inside the suit when they explode. But it’s more than a visual gimmick: visor tools such as X-ray and scanning don’t just provide utility—they introduce a new narrative system. Instead of relying purely on scripted exposition, information about enemy weak points, regional ecosystems, the function of mechanisms, and even Tallon IV’s ancient chronicles is gathered directly from the environment through creatures, plants, structures, and murals. Prime remains an atemporal benchmark—an adventure that redefined what the series could be in 3D.
Samus’s story continues after Metroid Fusion as she arrives on ZDR to investigate an unknown transmission sent to the Galactic Federation. The remote planet is dominated by hostile alien life forms and unsettling mechanical threats. Dread follows as an action and shooting platformer developed by MercurySteam and Nintendo for Switch, tasking Samus with escaping the deep-threat menace roaming ZDR.
