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Samus Aran has been through quite a bit in the last 35 years, and we’re finally going to see the culmination of her saga in the upcoming Metroid Dread. While we don’t know exactly what her future holds yet, it’s important to know what she’s been through so far. Allow me to take you on a journey through her past… a Metroid Primer, if you will.
Samus Aran’s Origins
While not covered in the games, the Metroid manga explains some of Samus’ upbringing. Samus spent her childhood on the planet K-2L until Ridley and his Space Pirates came to destroy her home and kill her parents.
A bird race called the Chozo later found Samus as the lone survivor. They took her under their wing (sorry) and raised her, fusing Chozo DNA with her own and training her in combat. Eventually, they gave Samus her iconic Power Suit, which greatly increased her athletic ability.
Later on, Samus joined the Galactic Federation Police and carried out various missions for them before becoming a bounty hunter. Much more lucrative, I suppose.
Metroid Zero Mission
Yes, I know this is not technically the first game in the series, but it’s the better version of it, so that’s what we’ll be talking about here.
Samus’ first mission takes her to Planet Zebes to investigate Space Pirate activity. Here, she finds Mother Brain and Ridley, along with Kraid, another high-ranking Space Pirate. She kills all of them, along with several Metroids.
During her escape, Samus’ ship is shot down by Space Pirates, forcing her to infiltrate the ship without her Power Suit and paving the way for the iconic Zero Suit to make its debut.
Samus discovers some Chozo ruins while she infiltrates the Mother Ship. After inevitably getting her Power Suit back, she destroys Mecha Ridley and blows up the Space Pirate ship, leaving Planet Zebes behind.
Metroid Prime Trilogy
The Metroid Prime games don’t fall into the main overarching lore of the 2D Metroid Saga, but there are some important details in here nonetheless - not to mention they contain arguably the best Metroid game in the series.
Metroid Prime
Samus gets a distress signal near the planet Tallon IV and investigates. Upon arrival, she finds a Space Pirate Frigate. Most of the crew are dead and Samus finds the Parasite Queen on the ship. After defeating her, the ship starts a self-destruct sequence, because of course it does. Samus escapes, but not before encountering an old friend: Meta Ridley.
Samus loses sight of Ridley and explores a new planet teeming with familiar life forms from Zebes. She discovers the Space Pirates have formed a base here to conduct cloning experiments on Metroids. Naturally, Samus decides she needs to blow the whole base up.
Samus’ adventure on Tallon IV leads her to an Impact Crater where a mysterious asteroid crashed and spread phazon - a sort of blue space poison/energy source. Before she has a chance to enter the crater, however, Meta Ridley attempts to stop her. He is not successful.
Once she’s inside the crater, Samus faces off with a phazon-enhanced creature called Metroid Prime. She kills it and escapes the planet, but not before the creature grabs her and removes the phazon enhancements she acquired for her Power Suit, which has lasting ramifications for the rest of the trilogy.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Samus receives yet another Galactic Federation distress call (a running theme for the series) from the planet Aether. The Federation has lost the crew of the G.F.S. Tyr after they followed a Space Pirate convoy trying to steal phazon resources.
Samus is hired to investigate the crew’s disappearance and quickly learns they’ve been killed by the Ing inhabiting the planet. As it turns out, the Ing are actually from a mirror world called Dark Aether. Another phazon asteroid like the one on Tallon IV crashed into the planet long ago and created a dimensional rift, causing Aether and the newly formed Dark Aether to overlap with each other.
Samus meets U-Mos, a leader of the Luminoth and native to Aether, and learns that the Ing have stolen energy from the planet and transferred it to Dark Aether. U-Mos asks Samus to return the energy and save their planet from catastrophe.
Remember how the remnants of Metroid Prime absorbed Samus’ phazon components back on Tallon IV? Well, this formed an evil being called Dark Samus, who followed her to Aether and started hunting her down. Samus encounters Dark Samus several times before a final showdown, after which she restores the stolen energy to Aether, kills the Emperor Ing, and escapes.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Samus gets a call to meet with Admiral Dane of the Galactic Federation on the G.F.S. Olympus. During this meeting, three other hunters from Samus’ offscreen past make their return: Rundas, Gandrayda, and Ghor. They get briefed on a phazon-based virus that’s infecting the Federation’s suspiciously designed Aurora Units.
During the debriefing, Space Pirates attack the Olympus and Samus is tasked with fending them off. Together with the other hunters, she follows the Space Pirates to the nearby planet Norion, where the Galactic Federation has set up a military base. Once she touches down on Norion, our old pal Meta Ridley makes a return to disrupt Samus and the other hunters.
Samus learns that another phazon asteroid is headed towards Norion. We soon learn that these ‘asteroids’ are not asteroids at all - they’re sentient ‘Leviathan seeds’ sent by a planet made entirely of phazon. Samus and the other hunters work together to restore power to the base’s energy cannon, which packs enough of a punch to destroy the incoming asteroid.
Samus and the gang are successful in their mission to destroy the Leviathan seed, but not before Dark Samus makes a return to screw everything up.
Samus learns the other hunters have already gone to investigate Leviathan seeds on three other planets in the nearby solar system, but surprise surprise, the Galactic Federation has lost contact with them. Due to the injuries Samus incurred during her encounter with Dark Samus on Norion, she is in a state of constant phazon production, so the Federation outfits her and the other hunters with phazon enhancement devices (PEDs).
Samus takes her new suit to the other planets, destroys the Leviathan seeds, and sadly is forced to kill her corrupted friends in the process. While she travels the solar system, Samus learns that an Aurora Unit has been stolen by Space Pirates from the G.F.S. Valhalla and the Leviathan seeds are being controlled by Dark Samus and sent from the planet Phaaze.
Samus travels to Phaaze by using an abandoned Leviathan seed to create a wormhole. Upon landing, her suit overloads with phazon and she is put into a state of permanent Hypermode, fully corrupting her suit. She makes her way through the planet and encounters Dark Samus for the last time, along with the missing Aurora Unit. Upon destroying both of them, Samus expels all phazon energy from her suit and destroys the planet, eliminating the phazon threat from the galaxy.
Metroid: Samus Returns
Just like Zero Mission, this isn’t the original iteration of Metroid 2, but it is the better version. Samus is sent by the Galactic Federation to eliminate all Metroids from their homeworld on Planet SR388.
Samus scours every corner of the planet for Metroids and indiscriminately kills them. She eventually finds the Metroid Queen and kills it to stop the birth of more Metroids. As she makes her escape, she encounters an egg. A Metroid hatchling comes out of it and imprints itself on Samus as if she were its mother.
Samus takes the infant Metroid back to the surface. Before she can make it to her ship, Proteus Ridley (why won’t he just stay dead?) attacks her. As usual, he is unsuccessful. Samus leaves SR388 with a job well done.
We now learn that Metroids aren’t native to any planet because they were created by the Chozo to be the natural predator of the X Parasite. Unfortunately, since Samus exterminated all the Metroids on SR388, the X Parasite is able to multiply and rapidly spread.
Super Metroid
Samus delivers the infant Metroid to the Ceres Space Colony Shortly after she leaves, however, she receives a distress call that Space Pirates have attacked the colony. This time around, Samus returns too late and Ridley abducts the infant Metroid.
Ridley escapes to Planet Zebes and Samus gives chase, returning to where her bounty hunter story began.
Samus explores the entire planet in search of Ridley and the infant Metroid, killing a few new Space Pirate lieutenants along the way. She eventually finds Ridley and kills him again before making her way to Tourian. Once there, she discovers Mother Brain has been rebuilt and is even more hideous than before. Mother Brain nearly kills Samus, but the now-gigantic infant Metroid sacrifices itself to save her. Samus escapes Zebes before it explodes and saves the galaxy yet again.
Metroid: Other M
Okay, so… this game is objectively bad, but I still enjoyed it. The story was borderline nonsense, but there are a few things you should know.
Samus is subservient to a Commanding Officer named Adam Malkovich for the entire game - so much so that she runs into an active volcano without activating her Varia Suit function until he gives her permission.
Meanwhile, the Galactic Federation really needs to quit meddling with things it doesn’t understand. It uses the remnants of DNA from Samus’ Power Suit and its own research to clone things including but not limited to: Zebesian Space Pirates, Ridley, Metroids that can’t be frozen, a Metroid Queen, and a replica of Mother Brain placed in the body of a human girl.
Adam Malkovich sacrifices himself to jettison Sector Zero from the Bottle Ship - yes, it’s shaped like a baby bottle - which takes the invincible Metroids with it. This causes Samus to idolize him for some reason, and the Galactic Federation puts his consciousness into her new ship. Huh? Why?
Metroid Fusion
Samus assists some researchers on SR388 with the study of life forms on the planet. Unfortunately, said life forms include X Parasites, which attach themselves to Samus after she kills a Hornoad.
Upon her return to the Biologic Space Labs research station, Samus loses consciousness and her ship ejects her in an escape pod. Once she’s retrieved, Federation scientists learn that the X Parasites that infected Samus’ Power Suit have multiplied and fully integrated themselves into her suit.
Due to the nature of her suit and the level of integration, the suit has to be surgically removed from her body. With Samus’ life hanging by a thread, the scientists use Metroid DNA synthesized from the infant Metroid to kill off the X Parasites.
Samus regains consciousness and is sent back to the BSL research station after an explosion rocks it. Here, she finds out that the X Parasites that attached themselves to her suit have mimicked her at her most powerful and are hunting her down.
She proceeds through the station and finds yet another clone of Ridley that the Galactic Federation preserved from the Bottle Ship. In case you were wondering, yes, you do fight it, and yes, you kill it again. Last time, I promise.
Things soon start to get pretty sticky on the research station. The Galactic Federation has been creating Metroids again in a secret part of the ship, has expressed interest in the SA-X as a weapon, and has therefore been withholding upgrades from you to prevent you from killing it.
The Federation attempts to lock the station down while it sends a team to capture the SA-X, but Samus and disembodied Adam Malkovich decide to redirect the station’s orbit into SR388 in an attempt to destroy both the station and the planet.
As she approaches the control room, Samus is ambushed by the SA-X, which turns into a nightmare creature once she shoots it enough. The SA-X returns to its core X form and floats away like a coward. Samus reaches the control room and changes the station’s orbit, then runs back to the docking bay to her ship.
As she approaches the ship, an Omega Metroid crashes through the wall and nearly kills her. Before dealing the finishing blow, the SA-X floats in and returns to its Samus form. It holds off the Omega Metroid for a little bit before being struck down. Samus then absorbs the SA-X and regains the Ice Beam before finishing off the Omega Metroid herself.
Samus gets back into her ship and flies away from the ensuing explosion. Another successful mission.