1986 · Famicom Disk System / NES
Metroid
The original: a labyrinthine alien planet, non-linear exploration, and the reveal that the armoured bounty hunter you had been controlling was a woman. Zebes awaited.
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Alone on an Alien World
Metroid is Nintendo’s atmospheric science-fiction action-adventure series, conceived by Yoshio Sakamoto and Hiroji Kiyotake at Nintendo R&D1 and published across three games from 1986 to 1994. The series follows Samus Aran, a galactic bounty hunter encased in a Power Suit of Chozo origin, as she hunts through alien worlds against Space Pirates and their weaponised Metroid bioforms.
Where most action games of the 1980s were linear stage-by-stage progressions, Metroid was a labyrinth: planet Zebes was a single interconnected world, its corridors sealed behind doors that required specific power-ups to open. The series pioneered the non-linear exploration structure that would eventually be named after it — the “Metroidvania” — and produced in Super Metroid (1994) what many consider the greatest game of the 16-bit era.
The trilogy covered three Nintendo platforms: the Famicom Disk System (1986), the Game Boy (1991), and the Super Nintendo (1994), each instalment expanding the world, the lore, and the emotional stakes. The baby Metroid’s sacrifice at the climax of Super Metroid — a creature Samus raised from Metroid II — remains one of the most affecting moments in video game history.
The Numbers
3
Games (1986–1994)
8
Years of the Trilogy
3
Nintendo Platforms
59
Metroid Forms (Metroid II)
1
Baby Metroid
∞
Atmosphere Rating
Defining Moments
1991 · Game Boy
Metroid II: Return of Samus
Samus dispatched to SR388 to exterminate every Metroid. The baby that hatches at game’s end imprints on her — setting up Super Metroid’s emotional core.
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1994 · Super Nintendo
Super Metroid
The masterwork. A seamlessly interconnected Zebes, wall jumps, the Speed Booster, and the baby Metroid’s sacrifice — the climax that defined what video game storytelling could be.
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