Colbert Bump: Both upon the announcement and the release of Dread, Metroid: Zero Mission, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Samus Returns, and even Metroid Prime Trilogy saw a massive influx of people buying the games. The first two in particular rose to the top of the Wii U eShop charts, despite said console being discontinued for 4 years at that point, due to the Wii U nevertheless being the easiest way to legally play those entries at the time.
Leading up to release, the official UK website for the game had brief videos to accompany explanations of gameplay elements. One video that explained the various beam weapons showed an X Parasite flying around before manifesting as an enemy in the corner of the screen, inadvertently spoiling a major event from the latter half of the game. This was quickly removed and replaced.
Some retailers broke the street date nearly a week early on October 2, 2021, and clips of gameplay and cutscenes surfaced.
The game's files contain tons of leftover textures and audio files from Samus Returns, due to both games using the same engine and the team presumably using elements of Samus Returns for prototyping.
There's textures and sounds for an unused flying enemy called a "Shineon".
There is a version of fake ADAM's final speech but recited by Raven Beak in the Chozo language.
Files were accidentally added to the v1.01 update before being removed in the v1.02 update. This included ADAM saying "Samus, this is the worst thing that could've happened" (likely for the X outbreak), a Raven Beak line without any vocal distortion (so it's just a guy talking), and Raven Beak X saying "THERE IS NO POWER WITHOUT SACRIFICE" in the Chozo language.
Extremely Lengthy Creation: Dread first entered development for the Nintendo DS around 2005, with its existence becoming known through leaked internal documents. Despite never being officially announced, the game would be alluded to and referenced over the years.note Although a rather famous one in the North American release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, an easter egg claiming that "Project Dread" was nearing completion, was supposedly a total coincidence. Series producer Yoshio Sakamoto would later reveal that the project was scrapped on two different occasions due to him being unsatisfied with the technical specifications of the handheld system. He'd leave Dread on the backburner and spend years working on various other Nintendo games, including other Metroid titles, instead. It wouldn't be until 2017 that the project would be revived, thanks to Sakamoto being impressed with the work that MercurySteam did with Metroid: Samus Returns. The game released in October 2021 on the Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo themselves would note that it was the first original 2D Metroid installment in over 19 years.
When the game was first announced, rumors quickly spread that Yoshio Sakamoto said Dread would be the final game in the Metroid series. He later clarified in an interview that it would be the last game to focus on Samus' relationship with the Metroids, leaving the series open for more potential plotlines in the future.
Sakamoto never confirmed whether or not the Kraid in Metroid Dread is the same one from previous games. In a Famitsuinterview, while Sakamoto did state that they "wanted to show off a new Kraid in Metroid Dread", in context, he's talking about the way that the Power Suit and Kraid were both given design updates for the game, not a comment regarding the character or lore.
International Coproduction: Like Samus Returns before it, the game is a co-production between the Japanese Nintendo EPD and Spanish studio MercurySteam.
The third Dread Report explains the Metroid species and its history, and clarifies that "Metroid" is the name of the jellyfish-like aliens, and not Samus. This was also joked about in one of the "Nintendo News" updates on the Nintendo Switch's news feed leading up to the game's launch, detailing important aspects of the series to know before playing Dread. Both of these moments refer to the tendency of people unfamiliar with the franchise to mistake Samus for the titular Metroid.
Q: Wait, I thought the main character was named Metroid?" A: Believe us, this is a common mistake!
The first tip in the Early Survival Tips video discusses locating destructible blocks. One of the areas it shows is The Room in Artaria where a lot of people get stuck due to not realizing that the blocks in the ceiling are breakable. This room was featured again Vol. 11 of Dread Report when it discusses hidden blocks.
Milestone Celebration: Dread released in time for the Metroid series' 35th anniversary, and much of Dread's marketing celebrated that fact. The fourth volume of the "Metroid Dread Report" was released on the exact date (August 6th, 2021), and summarized the four mainline games leading up to this one in addition to a new teaser trailer called "Glimpse of Dread". The physical "Special Edition" release of Dread came with art cards for these games as well, plus a book featuring concept art from throughout the series' history. Finally, the game itself rewards the player original artwork based on each entry in the mainline Metroid series (Zero Mission, Samus Returns, Super, Other M, Fusion, and Dread itself) based on difficulty setting and completion time, as well as another piece of artwork displaying all the major characters of the series if you get 100% Completion. And the celebration didn't stop with the game's release: a video released almost a month after Dread had a recap of the 2D Metroid games leading up to it.
Missing Trailer Scene: During Nintendo's E3 2021 stream, the "Metroid Dread Development History" video preceded the start of Nintendo Treehouse Live. As such, it ends with Sakamoto telling viewers that the game would be shown off immediately afterward by the Nintendo of America Treehouse team, closing off by saying "Dan, take it away!" In the standalone version uploaded to Nintendo's official YouTube accounts, Sakamoto instead tells viewers to "please stay tuned to our official Nintendo channels" to learn more about Dread.
Moved to the Next Console: Dread was originally planned for the Nintendo DS, but Yoshio Sakamoto felt that system didn't have the capabilities to properly create his vision for the game, so he put the project on hold for two generations until he finally decided to produce the game on Nintendo Switch.
Newbie Boom: The reveal of the game caused the franchise as a whole to get a massive burst of new fans, with many of the previous games hitting the top of the Wii U and 3DS eShop sales charts as a result of the game's announcement and newcomers being curious about previous games. As for the game itself, the prerelease hype combined with the Switch's massive install base would see it immediately become one of the best-selling Metroid games to-date, with its Japanese launch weekend numbers in particular outperforming the lifetime sales of nearly every other entry in the region. It would go on to sell 2.74 million worldwide in its first quarter, beating the lifetime sales of every game in the series sans Metroid Prime. By the end of its second quarter, the game sold 2.9 million, making it the top seller in the series.
Saved from Development Hell: Metroid Dread originally appeared in a leaked 2005 internal Nintendo document of Nintendo DS games set for future announcements, and was subsequently listed by gaming magazines as being in development. It would be alluded to two years later in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption as "nearing completion" (although this was apparently a complete coincidence). By 2010, Metroid series producer Yoshio Sakamoto would reveal that while Dread did exist, it was scrapped on two different occasions due to him being unsatisfied with technical specifications of the DS. After MercurySteam helmed Metroid: Samus Returns in 2017, Sakamoto was convinced they could successfully deliver his vision for Dread. The project was revived, and the game finally saw an official announcement at E3 2021 for release that October.
Troubled Production: As detailed in an article by Spanish gaming publication AnaitGames, Metroid Dread joins Metroid Prime in being a good game created in a bad work environment.note An English translation can be read here. Overall, the project and MercurySteam as a whole suffered from a mismanaged working environment where employees reportedly felt ignored or undervalued by superiors on the daily. Among the countless issues faced were staff being assured they had job security only to be fired shortly after, attempts by higher-ups to skip out on paying COVID-19 Pandemic related bonuses, and punishing employees for any mistakes by forcing them to work in isolation, forcibly switching them to another production group, or even immediately firing them. While both MercurySteam and Nintendo mercifully upheld their "no crunch" policies, this consequently resulted in content being cut to make deadlines — what we see in terms of bosses and cutscenes was reportedly half of what was originally planned.
Uncredited Role: Due to MercurySteam's policy of only crediting people who worked on their games for at least 25% of its development time, those who worked on Metroid Dread for less than a year weren't listed in the game's credits, with the AnaitGames article claiming this excludes over 50 people from the game's staff roll.
The Nintendo DS version of the game. The game was in development on-and-off throughout the lifespan of the system, the first attempt being in 2005 and the second being in 2008. The second attempt resulted in a prototype that was allegedly shown behind closed doors to Nintendo of America staff at E3 2009, only for it to be once again cancelled due to Sakamoto still being dissatisfied with the project.
MercurySteam's initial vision for Dread was quite lofty. When beginning production in 2018, the game's team had planned for twice as many bosses and a whopping 120 cinematics, all of which had to be cut down through development to avoid crunch while still meeting the deadline imposed by Nintendo. This may explain the suspiciously empty top-right corner of the map, the lack of a fourth Aeion ability, and the rushed pacing towards the story's climax.
The Special Edition artbook contains some interesting unused designs, such as a Network Station sphere that forms the old Adam's face to speak to Samus, biomechanical E.M.M.I.s with nightmare-inducing cyborg body horror, and a Kraid with black scales and an impressively muscular build.
Writer Conflicts with Canon: Yoshio Sakamoto, on the official Japanese website for Metroid Fusion, answered a number of questions from fans. One player questioned how Samus was able to use the Ice Beam at the end of the game despite it being said her physiology would reject it due to inheriting the Metroids' cold vulnerability. His response was that absorbing the SA-X restored her original genetic profile. Metroid Dread retcons this, as not only does she still have her Metroid DNA and cold vulnerability, but it also serves as a major plot point.
Other Trivia
The voices of both Adam and Samus's ship computer are provided by off-the-shelf text to speech programs run through some postprocessing effects. The female voice is notable as the original voice of Siri.
Oddly, the first phase - and only that phase - of the final boss takes less damage from Ice Missiles than from their predecessor, the Super Missiles. (That said, it is consistent with the Final Boss Preview at the beginning of the game, where Samus only has the Super Missiles and not the Ice Missiles.)
of people buying the games. The first two in particular rose to the top of the Wii U eShop charts, despite said console being discontinued for 4 years at that point, due to the Wii U nevertheless being the easiest way to legally play those entries at the time.