MercurySteam
Nintendo Switch
Description:
Upon investigating a mysterious transmission on Planet ZDR, Samus faces a mysterious foe that traps her in this dangerous world. The remote planet has been overrun by vicious alien lifeforms and murderous robots called E.M.M.I. Hunt or be hunted as you make your way through a labyrinth of enemies in Samus’ most intense side-scrolling adventure yet.
- Samus is more agile and capable than ever. Guide Samus Aran, an intergalactic bounty hunter raised by an ancient tribe, and traverse the many environments of a dangerous world. Parkour over obstacles, slide through tight spaces, counter enemies, and battle your way through the planet. Through her countless missions, Samus has never experienced a threat like the dread of ZDR.
- Power up and find more ways to explore and secrets to uncover. Gain abilities and return to previous areas to find new areas and hidden upgrades in classic Metroid™ gameplay. Planet ZDR’s sprawling map is home to many secrets to discover and powers to find. You’ll need to be prepared to evade and destroy E.M.M.I. robots and overcome the dread plaguing ZDR.
My role:
- Game Designer
- Level Designer
As game designer, I was in charge of designing most aspects involving gameplay and game content. From the initial idea, including pre-production, implementation and adjustments working together with director, programming and art teams. During the development, my idea was pushing gameplay and game content beyond Metroid: Samus Returns and also add new features that make the game feel unique thanks to the new hardware from Nintendo Switch.
Controls:
I worked on ensuring that controlling Samus feels more responsive, precise and fluid. Samus is the best bounty hunter and it usually is represented with her strength and fire power. However, one of my main ideas was to make Samus' movement and navigation reflect this trait too and add new moves that match a fast-paced 60fps gameplay.
Weapons:
I designed new additions to Samus' arsenal that featured for the first time in the series. The idea was adding new weapons in all categories: Beams, Missiles and Bombs. These weapons were designed having enemies, doors, destructible blocks and levels in mind in such a way that challenging situations can be created by combining them.
- New weapons include: Diffusion Beam, Hyper Beam, Omega Blaster, Omega Stream, Ice Missile, Storm Missile and Cross Bomb.
Abilities:
The idea behind Samus' abilities was expanding the tools players have at their disposal to struggle with E.M.M.I., lever situations during exploration and fight against enemies and bosses. In addition to classic styled power-ups, we also added new Aeion abilities.
- New abilities include: Dash Melee, Phantom Cloak, Flash Shift, Pulse Radar, Metroid Suit, Speed Booster and Shinespark.
Interactions:
I also designed most interactions with the environment that are related to exploration, level progression, secrets, puzzles and combat. Interactable devices can be clearly visible or hidden behind a black veil or a mask and their visuals were designed to give enough information to the player about the way they need to be used.
New interactive devices make use of Samus' new moves, weapons and abilities and allow the player to think about creative ways to overcome the situations related to them.
- New interactive devices include: Presence door, Grapple Beam door, E.M.M.I. zone door, pressure trapdoor, grapple yank block, rotatory grapple contraption, magma fueled door, air fan, Speed Booster block, shutter and Morph Ball launcher.
Enemies:
I was responsible for designing regular enemies along with my design team coworkers. Our idea involved creating enemies that encourages the player to use current Samus' weapons and abilities at the moment he first faces them, as well as the later acquired ones during backtracking.
Some regular enemies are especially vulnerable to specific weapons, like robots and armored creatures that can only be damage with missiles before Samus gets powerful piercing weapons.
One of the new mechanics that were taken into account while designing enemies was the dash melee, an offensive move that can be used to parry and counterattack an enemy attack but also to break enemies' current action or state. This maneuver needs to be executed during a small window in which the enemy is either preparing and attack or recovering from a recently launched one.
We also wanted enemies to feel more alive and reactive compared to Samus Returns'. That is why we used the different nature of enemies and their native environment to create different approaches that surprise the player the first time he meets them. For example, robot enemies can behave like security sentinels ready to erase intruders or being mere maintenance autómatas that patrol an area. Organic creatures can be non-hostile and run away when they see Samus or receives damage, neutral and attack Samus as response from her attacks or aggressive and attack Samus as soon as they notice her presence.
The last challenge was creating X-Parasite enemies that had to feel familiar to Metroid Fusion's player and also be surprisingly new, all of that making use of previous enemies in a creative way. In order to achieve it, we had in mind X-Parasite's behavior from Metroid Fusion that allows it to clone the same creature upon defeated, clone a different one or parasite an existing creature to evolve it into a stronger and more dangerous version.
Lastly, I also balanced enemy parameters during the first iterations and later implementation in levels.
- Enemies include: More than 60 regular enemies including stronger versions, visuals, attacks, AI behaviors, strengths/weaknesses and balancing.
Bosses:
I was in charge of designing several bosses from scratch working together with game director, programming and art team. They are the enemies with the most complex AI behaviors and attacks of the game. I also designed the arenas they fight in to ensure the best combat experience.
Even though I did not design some bosses, I balanced all parameters, including those designed by other members of the design team. These are, their attack patterns, attack frequency, damage, AoE and conditions to execute them.
- Bosses include: Kraid, Drogyga, Experiment No. Z-57, Raven Beak and Raven Beak X. I also balanced Central Unit, Corpius, Robot Chozo Soldier, Chozo Soldier, Escue, Golzuna, Elite Chozo Soldier.
Levels:
I contributed in level design with some puzzle-like situations based on Samus' new abilities and the behavior of enemies to create challenging and memorable moments.
I also designed the arenas of those bosses I worked on as main designer.
- Levels include: Two areas, boss arenas and puzzle-like situations.
I'm a video game designer from Madrid, Spain.