The Complete Metroid Timeline Explained

the metroid franchise has a sprawling timeline that weaves its grand sci-fi saga across 11 mainline games but how does everything tie together well not neatly to be honest you might have noticed metroid dread referred to as metroid 5 despite the fact that it's actually the 11th entry in the franchise and that's not even including metroid prime pinball you see metroid dread marks the conclusion of a story arc dating back 35 years which takes in the original metroid metroid 2 return of samus super metroid and metroid fusion hence you know metroid 5. but that chronology doesn't even take into account the metroid prime trilogy and its various handout spin-offs or even metroid other m so with metroid red set to expand the canon and conclude samus's long-standing mission to exterminate the metroids what better time to recap the franchise's entire story and if you like these kinds of deep dives into gaming timelines please make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel it really helps us out right from samus's confrontation with mother brain through to the horrors of being pursued by the sax in metroid fusion this is the complete timeline of the metroid franchise [Music] all right to really dive into the story of metroid you need to go back to the origins of its iconic central character sama saran while the games rarely delve into her tragic backstory there's actually a lot to dig into especially if you've read the manga volumes telling her tale which if you're interested in those good luck because they're absolutely impossible to find save for the first two chapters which you can read for free on the metroid database right where was i oh yeah i'll be brief because the manga covers a lot volume 1 sees samus have her first encounter with the wise chozo bird people and come face to face with ridley and the space pirates who promptly kill her parents and destroy her homeworld volume 2 however largely details samus's training at the hands of the chozo on their home world of zebes her time in the galactic federation and her ongoing battle with mother brain who is revealed to be a super computer created by the chozo remember this is all before the first game in the franchise even takes place speaking of which volume 2 dovetails nicely into the opening of that game [Music] naturally the og metroid or its remake zero mission if you will kicks off our timeline in earnest the year is 20x5 in the cosmic calendar and space pirates have attacked a deep space research ship making off with mysterious organisms known as metroids their plan to breed the metroids and use them as biological weapons to wage war on the galaxy standing in their way are the galactic federation space cops they send in renowned bounty hunter samus aaron to infiltrate the planet and take down mother brain the main antagonist behind the space pirates galaxy conquering plot and that's just the prologue to samus's zero mission a whole load of story information that isn't even mentioned in the game and you'll probably only see if you're at the game's manual which if you're anything like me age 12 you probably didn't either way the game kicks off with samus landing on zebes and she begins to explore the chozo ruins she infiltrates zebes then encounters and destroys a host of mother brains lieutenants including the giant reptilian crade think king k rool on steroids and her old nemesis the egotistical space dragon ridley oh and a metroid son of metroids finally she comes face to face with mother brain herself who she promptly dispatches before escaping the planet and that's where the original metroid finished but zero mission added on an extended epilogue that saw samus attacked by space pirates as she left the planet of zebes this redux ending saw samus crash land back on the planet near to the space pirates mother ship with her iconic power suit completely destroyed left in just her zero suit samus infiltrated the mothership before discovering the nearby ruins of chazodia an ancient chozo site where she discovered a fully charged power suit samuston's the power suit which we learned was originally created by the chozo and makes her way out of the ruins carving her way through hordes and hordes of space sparrows on route before she can escape though she's cornered by mecca ridley a robot designed by ridley in his own image i did say he was egotistical naturally samus destroys mecca ridley and escapes before the mothership self-destructs destroying all of the space pirates research on the metroids [Music] all right before we go on there's a little confusion as to where the metroid timeline goes next as there's a few inconsistencies within the in-universe dates for the rest of the franchise but the metroid prime sub-series of games is largely thought to squeeze into the timeline between metroid zero mission and metroid 2 samus returns as metroid's are largely running a mock before samus exterminates them all in metroid 2. obviously more on that later metroid prime kicks off in a suitably action-packed way with samus responding to a distress signal from an unknown frigate which is orbiting the planet of talon 4. surprise surprise it's a space pirate research facility where the reptilian race are experimenting with a bizarre substance known as faison found in abundance on talon 4. samus infiltrates the facility before being attacked by the parasite queen who promptly brings the frigate crushing down to the planet's surface a maneuver that sees samus lose all of her abilities in one fell swoop this will become a trend as you'll see going through the games samus makes her way down to the surface of talon 4 in pursuit of the space pirates and begins to explore her new surroundings she soon discovers the remains of a chozo settlement and ominous warnings about a great poison the aforementioned faison an element so dangerous that it's destroyed the chozo civilization on the planet she slowly pieces together the chozo's tragic backstory learning that they locked away this evil substance within the core of the planet and devised a trixie set of riddles for anyone that came looking for it namely those bastard space pirates eventually samus cracks the chozo riddles and as she's about to descend into the bowels of the planet she's attacked by meta-ridley a reborn enhanced version of the ruthless space dragon that's not to be confused with mecca ridley the metallic form of the ruthless space dragon who we saw at the end of zero mission i started playing these games well over 20 years ago and that's the first time i've realised that they're two different things yeah that's on me either way samus makes short work of the giant lizard before making her way down into the centre of talon 4. down there she discovers the titular metroid prime a super enhanced metroid who's been feasting on phase on the entire time and after a prolonged boss battle that makes use of every arm cannon and every visor upgrade you can get in the game the metroid prime is no more but wait what's that yeah if you 100 of the game a little post-credit sting way before marvel made them popular showcased a hand emerging from the ooze of the faison a tease that will catch up to very shortly but first a little detour yeah let's park that epic phase on narrative at the main prime games for a while as it's time for a little slice of handheld metroid in the form of the nintendo ds's metroid prime hunters hunters sees samus jet off to the far flung reaches of the tetra galaxy to the home of the now extinct olympics which are basically this game's chozo why are they extinct well it's one of the metroid galaxy's many mysteries a mystery that starts to unravel when a host of nefarious bounty hunters chief among them a lad called psylux more on him later start receiving messages from within the olympic cluster about a secret to the ultimate power with a view to stopping that mysterious ultimate power falling into the wrong hands the galactic federation sends samus to secure any potential threats turns out this ultimate power is all a hoax set up by the all-round wronger named guerrilla who's trying to break free from the ubeliet and old olympic prison geez i feel like i just hallucinate that last sentence uh either way samus squares up to the space inmate and escapes the prison facility before it self-destructs in a finale that brings metroid prime hunters to a close right back to that tantalizing tease at the end of metroid prime well metroid prime 2 echoes continues on the faison-centric narrative of the original prime relocating the action to the planet of aether which has gone through a similar tragedy to that scene with the chozo on talon 4. the game kicks off with samus arriving on aether after responding to a distress call from squad bravo a team of galactic federation marines who have been marooned on the planet after chasing down some space pirates samus crash lands on the planet and soon finds the remnants of squad bravo in an extended opening sequence that riffs heavily on james cameron's 1986 action masterpiece aliens as samus delves further into aether she soon discovers a strange being that resembles herself this is of course the very same entity that we saw at the end of the original primes post-credits scene this dark samus attacks our bounty hunter which once again removes every ability we learned in the previous prime game and thus sets the need to find everything again ah video games samus begins to explore her surroundings and makes her way into the great temple where she meets umos one of the last of a race of aliens known as the luminoff umos explains the strange situation behind aether revealing that a meteor once crashed into the planet and the resulting energy from the impact opened up a dimensional rift which spawned an entirely separate planet that exists in a parallel dimension a planet that brought with it bug-like warriors the ing and so the main bulk of ekko sees samus exploring the remnants of the planet and its dark twin on a mission to restore the once peaceful planet back to its former and singular glory naturally dark samus gets in the way of this mission picking a fight with regular samus not once not twice but three times before the mission is done after the final feud dark samus finally disintegrates into a cloud of phason particles but don't you worry this isn't the last we'll see of this trixie doppelganger samus eventually completes her mission restoring the light power to aether and destroying the ing population all before dark aether collapses in on itself but wait if you 100 of the game yet again you would have seen another little post credits tease showing that cloud of faison reforming into dark samus which leads us right into the prime trilogy's finale metroid prime 3 corruption picks up the narrative six months later and kicks off when samus and three other bounty hunters are recruited by the galactic federation to investigate a network corruption to one of their outlying planets to absolutely nobody's surprise it's dark samus and the space pirates behind the dirty work and samus and co head to the planet norion to fend them off upon arrival the federation discovers that another meteorite is on course to impact norian in a similar manner to both talonfor and aether before it bit of a pattern emerging here lads samus's batch of bounty hunters managed to destroy the incoming meteorite but they are ambushed by dark samus who corrupts them all with faison fast forward a month and samus has been rehabilitated with a fancy new power suit known as the ped suit which allows her to harness the power of faison on the flip side it's corrupting her slowly so swings and roundabouts eh the federation gives samus a new mission destroy the remaining faison meteorites and search for her missing bounty hunter mates who have all gone off the grid while following similar orders this mission takes samis to three new worlds bryo elisia and the pirate homeworld where she encounters the other hunters and learns that they have all fallen foul to the phase on corruption forcing samus to make the executive decision to put them out of their misery upon destroying all faison on the three aforementioned planets samus's mission eventually leads her to faze a sentient planet which is the source of all the phase on across the previous three games and the trilogy's one true antagonist if you think hard enough about it there samus encounters and destroys dark samus once and for all before destroying phase itself and as a result all the known faison across the universe naturally as has become custom for the series if you got 100 completion you were treated to a quick post-credit sting which saw samus jet off into the cosmos in her gunship but wait what's that sneaky ship following her well back at e3 2015 metroid prime series producer ken tsuke tanabe confirmed that the owner of this snazzy spacecraft was the bounty hunter silex who we first met in metroid prime hunters [Music] while the destruction of faison naturally made for the perfect ending for the prime sub series nintendo had other ideas and so we have metroid prime federation force bludgeoning its way into this timeline and it makes for quite a unique detour in the metroid franchise for starters samus takes a back seat in the game so you take up control of the titular federation force a group of mech-suited marines who are tasked with eliminating the space pirate threat in the wake of the events of metroid prime 3. as federation force was largely an action-focused co-op game there's not a whole load of meaningful narrative beats but there's a few things worth mentioning the game takes the force to the bermuda system where they find space pirate activity on the planet of talvania after fending them off they hire samus to investigate the pirates activity on the planet which kind of feels like they're passing the buck but who am i to judge naturally samus does all the dirty work and finds clues that lead to a space pirate weapon named the doom's eye which sounds cheery after locating the doom's eye the force infiltrates it and kills the master brain think mother brain but more derivative before being bailed out by samus yet again when the doom's eye is destroyed bringing federation force to a close but wait if you nab the metroid egg during the infestation mission you were treated to another cameo from bounty hunter silex this time breaking into the federation facility before stealing the egg and hatching it are these two cameos foreshadowing silex as the big bad at metroid prime 4 theorise away right after that lengthy detour into the metroid prime subseries we're finally on to metroid two the galactic federation have finally decided that they've had enough of metroid's thank you very much and have sent in a crack team of marines to exterminate the little parasites on their home world of sr-388 as you might have already guessed those marines failed but not before sending some research data back that confirms the presence of metroids within the planet's core enter samus again to clean up the federation's mess and put an end to the alien parasites threat once and for all and that's pretty much the plot of metroid 2 in its remake samus returns samus basically goes around systematically hunting and then killing every metroid left on the planet they largely take the form of weird alien crustacean things but as samus delves deep into sr-388 they've become increasingly larger and more violent after eliminating the metroids and their queen samus encounters a metroid egg which hatches right in front of her unable to kill the little baby metroid who imprints on samus like she's the mother samus takes the little lad back to the surface on the surface the pair attacked yet again by our old pal ridley now in new proteus flavor samus has dispatched ridley more times than she's had hot dinners though and with the help of her little metroid mate sees off the rotten lizard once again samus and her new baby metroid jet off into the stars but in a post-credits scene we get our first glimpse of the x parasite the original apex predator of sr-388 yes the metroid franchise just went a little deeper in fact metroid samus returns actually dropped something of a shocking bombshell for the franchise in the new chozo memories gallery we learned that the chozo came to sr-388 and discovered the potential threat of the x-parasite then and here's the big bombshell they created the metroids themselves to counter the x-parasites only things didn't quite work out that well the metroids latched themselves to well everything sensing the doom they had brought upon themselves the chozo attempted to seal the metroids within the bowels of the planet before fleeing to the surface when they got there they were greeted by a rescue party who promptly murdered them all and make sure to remember this arm cannon sporting chozo lad as it looks like he'll be cropping back up in metroid dread next up we have the absolute stone cold classic that is super metroid or metroid 3 if you're going by the numbering of this topsy-turvy franchise by now metroid's are on the brink of extinction save for our little baby pal from the last game who we catch up with in the title card cute things go downhill from here fast though having delivered the baby metro to the galactic federation scientist samus heads off to hunt another bounty only to have to double back on herself when the research center she was just in calls out for help samus hightails it back to the labs only to find ridley nicking her little metroid mate before the giant lizard escapes back to his old stomping ground of zebes yep that's right we are heading back to where this all started samus follows and lands on the old chozo homeworld only to discover the space pirates have rebuilt their colony in the years since her last adventure here samus once again dives into the underbelly of zebes hunting and killing the space pirates and their generals including the big fat dragon thing crade once again until she encounters a giant metroid who drains her of all her life energy just as she's about to die the metroid stops leeching her as it finally recognizes who it's munching on turns out that the baby metroid she found got swole samus revives herself and confronts a resurrected mother brain who has once again masterminded the whole space pirate enterprise as the battle ensues the swole metroid swings by to help samus out sucking power from mother brain and giving it to samus in a pivotal make or break moment for the bounty hunter for its trouble it is executed by mother brain and this act of violence sends samus on a devastating war path and she avenges her baby by destroying mother brain once and for all before fleeing the crumbling remains of zebes the events of super metroid have a lot of repercussions within the franchise the space pirates are finally finished the metroids are effectively extinct the chozo homeworld of zebes is wiped from the galaxy and samus is left with a whole heap of problems chief among them a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder which drives a large chunk of the narrative of our next game and boy is there a lot of narrative in that next game [Music] metroid other m which was developed in conjunction with team ninja puts a heavy emphasis on narrative with an extensive amount of cutscenes in the wake of the events of super metroid samus is put into rehabilitation by the galactic federation and fair play because by this point she's been through a lot coming out of rehab samus gets back to bounty hunting and soon receives a distress signal that leads her to an old abandoned federation horn called the bottle ship only upon further investigation it's not abandoned as samus soon encounters the seventh platoon and her old federation ringleader adam malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich samus agrees to cooperate with their old squad mates and as they investigate the battleship they uncover a mystery that hints at corruption within the galactic federation itself why well it only bloody turns out that a group of scientists have cloned ridley and the metroids turns out that while samus was in rehab galactic federation scientists were able to extract metroid particles from her power suit as a result with the baby metroid fusing itself with her at the end of super metroid with this new metroid dna scientists used the bottleship as a research facility for turning the titular parasites into bioweapons because at this stage nobody has learned anything from the history of these volatile creatures there's a whiff of adam malkovich being in on the corruption but those notions are put to bed when malkovich sacrifices himself to destroy the sector containing the recreated metroids samus pleads with him to reconsider but she eventually reluctantly agrees and honors his memory by destroying the metroid queen and thus exterminating the race all over again and so we reached the penultimate game in the franchise metroid fusion pulling on narrative threads from both other m and samus returns metroid fusion sees samus escort a research team back to sr-388 where she's infected by the x parasite that we saw in the post-credit sting if metroid samus returns while she's fine at first the parasite slowly overwhelms her immune system causing her to crash her trusty gunship into an asteroid belt samus is saved by the galactic federation and a team of doctors had to surgically remove parts of her power suit from her ex-parasite-riddled body she is then cured of her disease with a vaccine made from her little metroid pal that metroid's looking out for his surrogate mum from beyond the grave what a top lad samus eventually recovers from the virus and renewed with immunity to the ex-parasite she's dispatched to the biologic space laboratory's research station that's a mouthful to investigate a series of disturbances linked to her old x-parasite infested power suit upon arriving at the bsl station samus discovers said suit roaming around like some kind of metal zombie and this zombie power suit is dubbed the sax by samus's computerized co who's actually the disembodied voice of adam malkovich samus continues to explore the research station eventually encountering another lab containing metroid specimens and with the further discovery that there's actually 10 saxs on the space station apparently they can asexually reproduce or something samus makes the wise call to initiate the station's self-destruct function and crash it into the planet of sr-388 and as samus escapes into the stars again the station plummets down to the surface of sr-388 destroying it and the x parasite forever probably [Music] all of which leads us to metroid dread which puts a nice neat bow on samus's seemingly never-ending mission to exterminate the metroids turns out for all her hard work in metroid fusion some form of the x parasite lived on in the far-flung waste of the planet of zdr keen to eradicate the pests the galactic federation dispatched seven devastatingly powerful robots the extra planetary multi-form mobile identifiers or emmys for sure no not those naturally the emmys promptly go missing under mysterious circumstances and samus being the only known being in the universe who's immune to the x parasite is sent to find out why and the rest of metroid dread as of now remains a mystery there are a few more details that we do know however chief among them the presence of the chozo including the power cannon sporting lad we clocked back in the chozo memories from metroid samus returns amazingly this marks the first time the chozo themselves have actually appeared in a metroid game and they look like they mean business and the other key thing to note is that this is the end of a story arc 35 years in the making a story arc that will finally see some closure for samus and her lifelong quest to exterminate the metroids but crucially it's not the end of samus's story which will hopefully continue on whenever we finally get details about the upcoming metroid prime 4. and that pauses the metroid timeline explained well up to and including the early stages of metroid dread at least if you like these extensive gaming timelines please like this video and let us know what you'd like to see in the comments below we've already got an extensive timeline of the resident evil franchise if you're a fan of that mad series thanks for watching guys and i'll catch you next time [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: GameSpot

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Id: SrCFB-jxPVg

Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021