Metroid Dread UK sales momentum points to big time for series

Although it will take several weeks for sales figures to arrive globally, it appears that Metroid Dread has gotten off to a strong start, fueled by an extensive marketing campaign from Nintendo and a lot of positive word of mouth online. Sales in the UK have been some of the first to come, and although they failed to top the cross-platform titles. Far Cry 6 and FIFA 22, Dread’s launch weekend probably made it the best IP opening in the country when taking eShop downloads into account (at the time of writing, it’s number one on the UK eShop list and USA).

Historically, the series hasn’t been one of Nintendo’s most successful, with its influence and cultural impact outpacing actual sales, but perhaps Dread can change that thanks to a combination of its quality and its arrival on the popular Switch. However, the sales data and the position of Metroid games in the big picture is interesting, and a new report from GamesIndustry.biz (focused on the UK market) is fascinating read from that perspective.

It’s worth a look as you go through the series’ UK sales history, which gives an idea of ​​when IP came closest to a major breakthrough (apparently around the time of Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime: Hunters), and showing that, in the UK at least, the show’s iconic standout, Super metroid, it performed quite poorly at the time. Arguably this is because SEGA Mega Drive was putting a lot of pressure on the SNES in the UK market at the time, but it’s interesting to watch.

Below is a small excerpt from the report, relating to the last 5 years of the franchise and a turnaround with MercurySteam’s efforts at Dread and earlier. Metroid: Samus Returns.

When Metroid returned in 2016, it was another controversial release: Metroid Prime: Federation Force for Nintendo 3DS. Similar to Hunters in some ways, Federation Force focused on action and multiplayer. But it wasn’t what the fans wanted, who didn’t like the original trailer and asked Nintendo to cancel the game through a petition. It received average reviews and was not even registered in the UK. Outside of the NES Classic Metroid relaunch, the Federation Force remains the UK’s best-selling Metroid.

Critically, things got better in 2017 when Nintendo returned to the 2D roots of Metroid with a remake of Metroid Prime 2. Simply called: Metroid: Samus Returns, the game was conducted by the European study MercurySteam, and was very well received by critics. Unfortunately, it was released very late in the lifespan of the 3DS (the Switch was released six months earlier) and sales of the game were low. But it outsold the game it was based on, and even outsold Metroid Zero Mission.

It was no surprise that MercurySteam was invited to create another 2D Metroid. Metroid Dread released last week for the Nintendo Switch. Strongly backed by Nintendo, the game received high critical acclaim. The game’s launch sales were slightly behind the Metroid Prime launch, but in terms of revenue, it’s the Launch of the highest grossing Metroid game yet.

In fact, Metroid Dread, after just a week, is already the eighth best-selling Metroid game (and the sixth in terms of revenue) and has already outsold Samus Returns. And that’s not including the game’s digital download data.

Also, here’s a line of validation if, as this write, you often bemoan Nintendo’s mistakes with the shiny Metroid Prime trilogy launch on Wii.

In 2009, Nintendo released a compilation of its Prime Trilogy. This game was only released in a limited supply, so it was only ranked 11th on the Metroid best-selling games list.

It’s all so cool, be sure to check out the full report to see where your favorite Metroid game is stacking up in terms of UK sales.

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