40 years ago, Nintendo’s Metroid established a video game genre that’s still going strong today
Metroid, Nintendo's landmark exploration-adventure game, marks its 40th anniversary today, having debuted on the Famicom Disk System in Japan. Though it began as simply another well-regarded release from a studio already known for quality titles, it went on to establish the "Metroidvania" genre, which continues to shape game design decades later.
The game follows bounty hunter Samus Aran as she battles Space Pirates to reclaim stolen life-draining organisms called Metroids, ultimately confronting the intelligence system Mother Brain. Its lasting influence stems less from its plot than from its non-linear, side-scrolling world, which let players roam freely and gate progress behind new abilities such as missiles, an ice beam, a ball-morphing manoeuvre and bombs, an approach that felt vast for its era and directly inspired the later Metroid Prime series and countless imitators.
- Metroid turns 40 since its Japanese Famicom Disk System debut.
- It pioneered the non-linear "Metroidvania" genre still popular today.
- Samus Aran's ability-gated exploration set a lasting design template.
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Metroid is a Nintendo video game first released in Japan in 1986 on the Famicom Disk System, a console add-on for the Family Computer (Famicom), Japan's version of the NES. It puts players in control of Samus Aran, a bounty hunter, as she explores an alien world, fights enemies called Space Pirates and eventually confronts a computer system known as Mother Brain.
The game's significance lies less in its story than in how it was designed. Rather than moving through levels in a straight line, players could explore an interconnected map freely, with certain areas only becoming accessible once new equipment, such as missiles or new movement abilities, had been found. This structure was unusual for its time and proved highly influential.
That design approach later became known as "Metroidvania", a term combining Metroid with Castlevania, another series that adopted a similar style. The genre remains widely used in game development today, which is why Metroid's 40th anniversary is being marked as a notable milestone in gaming history.