The Metroid series follows Samus Aran, a bounty hunter in a powered suit, through buried labyrinths, space stations and derelict ships where the way forward must be found rather than given. Its worlds open gradually as new weapons and abilities turn doors, ledges and dead ends into passages, and its quiet, solitary stretches are broken by encounters with the Metroids and the Space Pirates who want to use them.

Nintendo’s series is defined above all by Super Metroid (1994), the game that set the template for the searching, backtracking exploration that later designers would call the Metroidvania. The series also grew in three dimensions: Metroid Prime (2002) translated that same lonely discovery into a first-person view, and its sequels Echoes (2004), Hunters (2006) and Corruption (2007) followed, alongside the side story Metroid Prime Pinball (2005). Its most recent numbered main entry is Metroid: Other M (2010); a further game, Metroid Ravenous, is listed for 2027.