Metroid Dread: How long to beat and how hard is it?

Metroid Dread, the long-awaited fifth entry in the main Metroid series, was released on Friday, October 8th, 2021. Nintendo announced Metroid Dread during its E3 Direct at the beginning of 2021. Metroid Dread succeeds Metroid Fusion which was released 19 years ago, in 2002.

With last week's release of the Nintendo Switch OLED model, gamers wonder how long it takes to play Metroid Dread from start to finish on their old or new Nintendo Switch consoles.

So how long does it take to beat Metroid Dread, and how hard is it??

How long is Metroid Dread?

Therefore, it might be interesting to note that Metroid Dread is expected to occupy players for less than 10 hours, based on early reviews. 

The game takes approximately 7-9 hours for the main story, 9-10 hours for the Main Story + Extras, and around 11 hours for completionists.

These numbers are similar to Super Metroid (around 7 hours) and Metroid Fusion (5-7 hours), but Metroid Dread is shorter than Samus Returns's 11 hours.

While the pace for a 2D Metroid game is generally average, it pales compared to the run times of the 3D Metroid Prime games, which generally last around 15 hours. Since the 2D levels are smaller than their 3D counterparts, this is understandable given the differences between the two approaches to game design.

Although some might be disappointed that the game lasts only a few hours despite its $60 price tag, fans of the Metroid franchise often play the games multiple times since they often reward players for speedrunning the games. Speedruns may be why Nintendo designs Metroid games to be shorter while requiring multiple playthroughs to master.

Still, I would prefer to see a longer Metroid game for a change as multiple playthroughs are not appealing to every gamer.

How hard is Metroid Dread?

Of course, a game's difficulty is a subjective concept, but Metroid Dread may be challenging at specific points.

Because Metroid Dread only has one difficulty setting, so you will have to grind and make Samus stronger if you are stuck.

It is possible to counter EMMI robot attacks with the press of a button, but you have only a split second to do it. Meanwhile, as you encounter these robots regularly, you often have to kill them as fast as possible.

As for boss battles, there are a few challenging ones in the game, where you'll need to dodge perfectly and deal damage repeatedly and accurately. You may need to try more than once to defeat these bosses since they're no walk in the park. 

During the time between boss fights, Metroid Dread doesn't do much to guide you. You could go in the wrong direction and waste an hour. Keep an eye on your map and try to find places you haven't visited yet. Some areas will flash as well if you haven't found everything on the map.

Whenever you try to advance to the story, you will encounter alien creatures even in the more exploratory parts of the game.