Metroid Ravenous Looks Absolutely Insane

Okay, Nintendo is definitely on one with Metroid Ravenous.

Because this game looks absolutely crazy.

The graphics look fantastic. The gameplay looks insane. And some of the shit happening in this trailer—I’m not even going to pretend I understand half of it.

Samus Is in Trouble

One of the things I really love about Metroid Ravenous is the premise.

This doesn't sound like the usual Metroid setup where Samus receives a distress signal and goes investigating. She’s not on some Galactic Federation mission. She’s not tracking Ridley. She’s not trying to recover a stolen Metroid.

She’s just seemingly minding her own business.

And then she gets attacked and ends up in the middle of this mysterious moon, seemingly with no idea where the hell she is. She figures out where she is, looks around at the situation she’s been thrown into, and basically realizes she needs to get the hell out of there. And that’s the backstory.

She’s trapped.

She’s being hunted.

And she has to fight her way out.

I love it.

It gives Ravenous a completely different energy from previous Metroid games.

Ravenous Is a Very Interesting Name

And then there’s that subtitle:

Ravenous.

The more I think about it, the more I love it.

At the end of Metroid Dread, Samus essentially becomes a Metroid herself - or at least that’s my interpretation of what happens after she absorbs the Metroid DNA and undergoes that transformation.

So now we have a game literally called Ravenous, with Samus being thrown into a situation where the language used is eat or be eaten.

That doesn't feel accidental.

The trailer makes me wonder if Nintendo is playing directly with Samus’s new status as essentially the last remaining Metroid.

Remember, Samus is the one who ultimately exterminated the Metroids.

So is someone coming after her because she’s effectively the last Metroid?

I have no idea.

I'm speculating here.

But if that’s part of the story, I’m absolutely here for it.

Because what if Ravenous is actually leaning into the idea that Samus is now this incredibly dangerous predator herself?

She’s not just fighting enemies. She’s consuming them. She’s absorbing their abilities. She’s becoming stronger by taking what her enemies have.

And that brings me to something I’m REALLY curious about.

Ravenous could potentially give that entire Metroid gameplay loop a new narrative meaning.

Samus isn’t just finding upgrades anymore. She’s consuming her way out of this place.

The Opposite of Metroid

There’s another thing I find really interesting about the setup.

Traditionally, Metroid has you working your way down.

You land on a planet or a space station, and you gradually descend into its depths. You start on the surface and work your way toward the core, the Space Pirate base, Mother Brain, the Metroid Queen, whatever the ultimate destination happens to be.

Metroid II is a particularly good example.

You’re exploring SR388 and progressively making your way deeper into the planet toward the Metroid Queen. But Ravenous appears to flip that formula.

You start at the bottom.

Samus is already deep inside this moon, and her objective isn’t to descend farther into it.

She’s trying to escape.

She’s trying to fight her way from the depths back toward the surface. And I love that reversal.

Instead of:

“I’m going down here to find something.”

It’s:

“I’m already down here. Now I have to get the hell out.”

That’s a very different feeling.

And it also changes Samus’s role.

She’s not necessarily the hunter this time.

She’s being hunted.

Samus Has to Get Her Parry Game Up

And apparently I’m going to have to get my parry game together, too.

Because I’ve always been pretty terrible at parrying in the 2D Metroid games. I barely bothered with it in Samus Returns on the 3DS. I got a little better at it in Metroid Dread. But looking at some of the combat in Ravenous? Yeah. I’m going to have to get good.

Because this game looks like it’s going to demand a lot more from Samus mechanically.

This Is Exactly What I Want From Metroid

That’s probably what excites me most about Ravenous. It looks like Nintendo is taking the established Metroid formula and spicing it up without throwing away what makes Metroid Metroid.

You’re exploring. You’re fighting. You’re getting abilities. You’re solving environmental puzzles. You’re navigating an interconnected world. You’re fighting bosses.

But now there’s this underlying feeling that Samus herself is something different.

She’s trapped. She’s being hunted. She’s consuming things to survive. She’s trying to escape.

And the title Ravenous suddenly starts making a whole lot of sense.

Eat or be eaten.

That’s some badass shit. Generally, I love how Mercury Steam portrays Samus in these games; she’s a complete badass.

And this is the kind of storytelling I want from Nintendo.

Give me something a little darker.

Give me some danger.

Give me a Samus who’s pissed off, trapped somewhere she doesn’t understand, and fighting her way through increasingly insane creatures because she has one objective: Getting out alive.

I want Nintendo to go all the way with this.

Hell, this shit better at least get a T rating.

I’d love an M, but I know that’s probably asking Nintendo to become an entirely different company. 😂

Still, give me that darker edge.

I like spicy Nintendo.

And January 28 Is Perfect

And then there’s the release date: January 28, 2027.

That is damn near perfect.

It’s the dead of winter. The holiday games are behind us. There’s usually a little lull in major releases.

And then Nintendo drops a brand-new Metroid on us.

Perfect.

It also gives the Switch 2 a hell of a way to start 2027.

We’ve already got the new Kirby open-world adventure coming in the spring, Xenoblade Chronicles: Genesis presumably later in the year, and Pokémon Winds and Waves potentially serving as the big holiday release.

But yeah.

Metroid Ravenous looks absolutely fantastic.

The graphics.

The gameplay.

The combat.

The mystery.

The premise.

The fact that Samus appears to be trapped at the bottom of some mysterious moon and has to literally fight her way to freedom.

And that damn subtitle.

Ravenous.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Maybe I’m completely wrong about what it means. Maybe I’m reading way too much into the Metroid connection.

But if Nintendo is actually leaning into the idea that Samus has become something of a Metroid herself with an insatiable appetite - and building the game’s mechanics and story around that?

Oh, I’m here for it.

January 28 can’t come soon enough!