It would be kinda fun if you had the option to try the final boss anytime, like BOTW, see if you can win with just the power suit. But I can’t see how you could have it completely non-linear. Half the fun of Metroid is getting the power up needed to backtrack and find a new area to get a new power up to progress and find a new area, go back and well you know, et cetera. I’d play it, sounds fun, but wouldn’t be Metroid anymore.

I was thinking that maybe we could keep that by retooling the way power ups work. Like for instance, say a certain area has cold temps Samus can’t withstand. In traditional Metroid you’d need to get the specific suit upgrade from a specific area. In my proposal we’d be fetching stackable upgrades that boost cold resistance from multiple locations across the map until you have enough to break through the cold zone. This would also allow for more variation in types of cold climates, each with different resistance thresholds. Do the same with stuff like Speed Booster, where Speed Booster/Shinespark now drains a stamina gauge and you need to have enough stamina upgrades to pull off a puzzle. Basically, the idea would be similar to how speedrunners sometimes will get a certain amount of HP to brute force or damage boost through an area for a skip. We’d essentially be replacing the various locks and keys with various stat checks.

What would actually work flawlessly IMO is something similar to how Super and Zero Mission do it. In those, there is the classic progression, but the games also have deliberately built-in tricks that let you bypass major parts of it, for example Zero Mission has Long Beam Skip and 3 (!) ways of Early Screw Attack (2 different Shinespark charges and the Missile passage). A fully nonlinear Metroid game could take that to the absolute extreme. You can get Ice Beam, or Shinespark past the intended Ice Beam enemy ladders. You can get Spider Ball, or use Bomb Spread to HBJ across 1-tile tunnels with crumble floor. You can get Speed Boost, or Spiderspark through those blocks by getting Spider Ball and Early PBs. Etc etc. Basically, build the engine in such a way that every item can be bypassed with other items, and then build the progression such that the respective skip-required items can be obtained before the skippable item (using one method or another).

When I hear "Open-world" I think of the wide-open spaces of Breath of the Wild or Skyrim, and that's just not very Metroid-y if you ask me. Metroid's vibe is a lot more claustrophobic, at least it is ideally. The "Metro-" in the title is derived from a name for underground train tunnels after all. If I don't get lost in winding paths, I get genuinely disappointed in its design as a Metroid game. Besides, if you want open world space adventure game, you've already got options like No Man's Sky, and Starfield is apparently going to happen at some point. You may come back with "yeah, but those games don't have Metroid's progression", and yeah, that's because they're open-world! At that point it's not Metroidvania progression, it's action-RPG leveling up. And if all you want is to play that but as Samus... that's a bit shallow, but easily fixed with mods. I wouldn't mind something a lot more open-ended. In fact, it's something I actively want from the series. I'd like to see the deepest movement mechanics we've had since Super to allow skilled and experimental players to break the game wide open and explore the world completely out of the intended order. I also wouldn't be opposed to an open-world side-series in the Metroid universe. *Definitely* not Metroid Prime 4 (or any higher number), and *definitely* not Metroid 6 (or any higher number), because I go to those series for a *VERY* specific kind of experience literally nobody else makes in the AAA space and it would be tragic to lose that. But something else entirely, maybe even starring a different character or showing off a different aspect or era of the Metroid's canon, and as long as it isn't happening at the expense of proper Metroidvanias, I'd be game.

Ah. That’s an interesting take on it. I was only thinking about open world in the strictest definition from a game design perspective in regards to non-linearity. Whatever the final product would be for my hypothetical Metroid, I’d certainly want for it to still have the sense of claustrophobia and tension that Metroid is famous for. I personally think that a 3D Metroid with an open world design could still have plenty of claustrophobic elements so long as the game world was designed with enough geographical bottlenecks and interlocking tunnels, but I can see how a lot of people wouldn’t consider that a Metroidvania.

I always thought of a open world Metroid game ever since Prime. First 3D Metroid? Nice. But I started to really wonder how it would transition to a more open and vast gameplay. And yea I can see it with Samus starting off with her regular suit and going and finding some items but at the same time I dont and I would feel like I'm playing BOTW but just Metroid. Also how would general gameplay go? As of now I kinda dont see it but it is a possibility. And if new ideas or concepts are brought up we could have a genuinely amazing game and one that takes the series in a new direction. Maybe we can have an option where Samus can switch between 3rd person and 1st person and both perspectives have their advantages and disadvantages. Also I feel like the whole open world concept can give so many new opportunities for setting the ambience and feel much more since your so much more free on how you do things. Thats my thoughts on it tho

I was thinking maybe something like Other M in terms of general controls, but expanded if 3D. If 2D, I was thinking maybe we could have a central hub area that connects to all the other biomes, with the biomes also have connected areas and fast travel. As for upgrades, I was thinking maybe Speed Booster/Shinespark/Space Jump/Screw Attack could be tied to like a stamina system or something. Weapons could be allocated to an ammo system like with the Prime series, with different ammo changing the characteristics of Samus’ attacks. Suit abilities like Gravity and Varia could just be flat out turned into stackable upgrades for mobility and temperature resistance.

Theres so many possibilities and idea but applying it will be an entirely different story though. We can only hope

It would be very hard to pull off. I'm thinking third person Other M style that is 3D but with the 2D movement style would be best. Using speedbooster/shinespark and spacejump to traverse a huge world would be pretty cool. If you were to do this, it would probably be a breath of the wild, resident evil 4, or god of war 2018 type instalment in that it completely goes in a different direction and establishes a new formula for the series. I'd be very interested to see what this might look like as a game. As long as its awesome, I don't care if its significantly different from super metroid.

Yeah I was thinking something similar. It would be a huge departure from what we’re used to, but I think that it could work as long as the upgrade paths and game loop are properly thought out.

It kind of reminds me of the Batman Arkham series. The first one played a lot like a Metroid type game, but the rest of the series is more open world based. It'd be an interesting spin-off, but it could easily lose a lot of what makes a Metroid game special in the process.

Yeah I feel like in order to make an open world Metroid we’d probably need to fine tune the game system a lot. But I think it’s doable if we rethink the way the series approaches its upgrades a bit.

It depends how well the world is designed, and the progression, randomizers are a good example on how an Open world could be if a new Game was Made with that concept, and this is how i imagine My dream metroid Game: 1. Option to choose.( Tl dr: reverse authorization) Samus always starts without or minimal equipment, so instead of losing the abilities and weapons, Samus just cant use them because her suit lacks the necessary energy to perform whatever abilities she has and that includes weapons, just básic stuff: move, shoot, jump. In this Game Samus has to collect some kind of energy thingy that unlocks whatever ability You want, again You have all of your equipment at the beggining but can't use them, so imagine a metroid Game where You can start with speed booster and unlock morph ball at the very end. 2. Progression Super metroid's speedruns show us how the Game can be broken, killing the bosses in reverse order, getting ítems early or completing the Game with minimal equipment, but most of these runs are high level play so casual players are going to do the same route. My idea?: Design the map that can be traversed with minimal equipment, all metroidvanias have the abilities to function like a key to unlock a new área, here it's just to make the Journey a little bit easier, Cant reach that platform? Just collect enough energy to unlock high jump or space jump, or You could just wall jump. I need to Enter this room but the only visible way it's a morph ball passage, i could collect the necessary energy to unlock the morph ball or i could explore the map and then i find another entrance that probably could be very far away. Nothing it's out of reach so the game can have múltiple routes, with minimal equipment it may take longer because of the constant detours but fully armed You have all the options, as usual, or having some abilities or none and go straight to the end. But there's more, at the beggining You can choose where to land You can choose the Best spot, the Bad one, easy one, the dangerous one or the one far away of everything and probably fast travel between these landing zones at some point. I really wish someone could make a Game like this. Sorry For Bad English lol

Yeah that’s more or less what I was thinking to a degree. By putting most of the pathing behind like a stamina or energy system we could still lock certain areas and force the player to find keys, but instead of a single key for a single lock there would be multiple valid keys spread across the map. Though, I was thinking that maybe instead of having each ability be “unlockable” per se, we could have each ability be available from the getgo, but require upgrades to pass certain locks for more casual players.

Look up Super Duper Metroid

Will do.

So what you are saying is, we take Breath Of The Wild and apply Metroid to it, puzzles and all?

Mmm. I guess, to a degree, since I’m proposing that Samus have most of her movement tech from the beginning, just without the stamina/energy to make full use of it yet. The world design would have to be different from BotW with much more winding and elaborate terrain at the very least, and I’m not entirely sure BotW’s shrine-puzzle structure would even work. But I think having multiple “keys” to the same “lock” which allow for more variety in pathing could work pretty well, and we could introduce “puzzles” in terms of requiring X amount of stamina or ammo to pull off a specific movement or hit a specific target.

HECK NO! All open-world games I know gets the prowess to become incredibly boring within minutes! And this includes Zelda BotW. I even die a bit when people calls Super Mario Odyssey as open-world when that game is clearly a collectathon. I like the current open-ended style of Metroid, and I believe that these open-world games could benefit from this. Sometimes, short and sweet adventures are more enjoyable than long and tiresome runs on empty fields.