How Metroid Dread Shows Samus Emotions (Despite The Visor)

How Metroid Dread Shows Samus’ Emotions (Despite The Visor)

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In Metroid Dread, Samus isn’t seen without her helmet, and her eyes are rarely shown through the visor, but it doesn’t impede her characterization.

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How Metroid Dread Shows Samus Emotions (Despite The Visor)

Metroid Dread puts protagonist and renowned bounty hunter Samus Aran in a familiar situation – stranded on an alien planet bereft of all her suit upgrades. After being thoroughly defeated by the mysterious Chozo general in Dread’s opening cutscenes, Samus is left in perhaps the series’ most dire circumstances: far underground and away from her ship, with the hostile E.M.M.I. robots and maybe X Parasites in her way. Throughout her journey to recover her powers and investigate the X sightings, Samus never removes her helmet, but Metroid Dread still manages to pull a lot of emotion out of her visor.

Samus is rarely seen outside of her Power Suit, which is of Chozo design. It lets her breathe underwater and in outer space, and is highly upgradeable. The visor on her helmet is often green, and in Metroid Dread, it completely obscures her face almost all of the time. The Metroid series is typically very light on exposition, preferring to keep the player engaged in its side-scrolling gameplay, but it still faces the difficult challenge of communicating Samus’ emotions without being able to show her face.

There is one advantage to a practically faceless main character – the ability for the player to easily graft their own emotion onto them. Metroid Dread has players experience the entirety of the game through control of Samus, and uses this principle to great effect. Especially early in the game, when encountering the first few E.M.M.I.s and bosses, there’s a real sense of danger from being lost in the depths of ZDR. The blank canvas of Samus’ visor does a good job mirroring the player’s apprehension in response to Metroid Dread’s brand of horror, but the game goes to great lengths to characterize Samus herself.

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Metroid Dread Masters The Close-Up

Metroid Dread is an exceptionally personal story for Samus. Without going into major spoilers, Dread wraps up a story arc that began with the original Metroid in 1986. Letting the player see their own emotions reflected in Samus is important, but Samus’ story is equally highlighted. In order to pull emotion out of Samus, Dread utilizes a variety of camera angles, especially extreme close-ups, to heavily imply Samus’ feelings. Throughout the game, Samus’ stance, demeanor, and eyes can be interpreted as terror, surprise, indifference, stoic confidence, and more. The range of emotion the developers at Mercury Steam were able to communicate through Samus is quite impressive.

In one scene in particular, not quite halfway through the game, Samus’ shock is communicated quite plainly before it’s even revealed what she’s looking at – a friendly Chozo named Quiet Robe. While they’ve long been a part of the Metroid story, the only Chozo Samus has encountered in Dread by that point was hostile and in a full Power Suit. In the scene, Samus studies a Chozo relief, her eyes squinting in concentration as she pieces its meaning together. An E.M.M.I. destroys the relief and attacks her before being shut down, and Samus turns to see Quiet Robe, clearly and utterly confused for a few seconds. She lowers her arm cannon in relief and wonderment before Quiet Robe starts speaking. Nothing is ever shown of Samus’ face beyond her eyes, tinted green behind her visor, yet Metroid Dread is positively filled with these moments of convincing emotion.

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Link Source : https://screenrant.com/metroid-dread-samus-story-emotions-helmet-visor-good/

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