Metroid Ravenous Lands on Switch 2 Jan 28

Metroid Ravenous (Nintendo eShop). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the still.

Honestly, the first frame of Metroid Ravenous already has a palette I am obsessed with. Teal sky, copper helmet, that snout-shaped green pauldron, and a magenta hand that looks less like a beam and more like a hunger. Nintendo announced the next mainline 2D Metroid for Nintendo Switch 2 with a hard date: January 28, 2027. Pre-orders opened with the Direct. The pitch is blunt and a little feral: eat or be eaten.

This is not a day-one scorecard. It is a read on the art direction Nintendo is selling, how the feed fantasy sits next to Metroid Dread, and why the Special Edition amiibo set is doing as much visual storytelling as the trailer. If your Switch 2 shelf already feels crowded after Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and the Ocarina remake face debate, this one still earns the red chip for pure silhouette work.

What Nintendo is selling (officially)

The US eShop page keeps the fantasy tight. Samus Aran is ambushed by unknown attackers and marooned on an unfamiliar moon. You gather an arsenal, navigate labyrinthine ruins, hunt bosses, and use newly awakened Metroid instincts to devour foes. Strike quickly with beams, missiles, and more, or become the next meal. Estimated download size sits around 20.2 GB. Single player. TV, tabletop, handheld. ESRB: Animated Blood, Violence. Supported features on the listing include amiibo, surround sound, HDR output, and 120 Hz output on compatible displays.

UK and US store copy both land the same date: January 28, 2027 for standard digital and physical, plus a Special Edition. Digital price on the listing sits at the familiar $59.99 / £49.99 band for the regular version. Direct footage continues the MercurySteam-era silhouette language from Dread: snappy side view, heavy melee punctuation, hostile architecture. Nintendo Life and Gematsu framed it as a continuation of that 2D lane, with water running, mid-air warps, and finishing attacks in the trailer language. The feed mechanic is the new headline color.

The feed fantasy and why the key art hits

I keep coming back to the key still. Samus is not posing for a poster. She is pinning a creature with a left hand that crackles magenta, body low, arm cannon cocked, green shoulder plate reading like a predator snout. The little details are doing overtime: lime visor glow, yellow circular vents in the pauldrons, magenta sparks floating like pollen against that teal sky. Lowkey, this is the cleanest "new Metroid era" composition Nintendo has put on a store page since Dread landed.

After Dread, the marketing leans into Metroid biology as power and risk. Official copy talks about devouring foes and tapping Metroid Suit power. That is a palette shift as much as a mechanic shift: pink hunger light as a signature accent next to the copper and cobalt suit. I am obsessed with how readable it is at thumbnail size. You can feel the theme before you read a word. Compared with the calendar noise around GTA VI and Zelda, Ravenous is quieter on the timeline and louder on silhouette. January 2027 is soon enough to matter.

Screenshots: lava heat, boss cores, quiet causeways

The eShop gallery is where the art direction becomes a game. One still puts Samus in a volcanic chamber firing a pink beam into a spherical drone with cyan bands while lava paints the cave orange. Another drops her against a hulking pale boss with a glowing chest core and a purple vortex on the frame edge. A third goes almost ceremonial: Samus from behind on a long causeway, golden spear soldiers in formation, storm sky, tower braziers.

Gameplay stills keep the HUD honest. Circular gauges, segmented energy bars, the little E tank badge, ice icons, a minimap that still looks like a Metroid map. The feel is continuity, not reinvention for a new logo. MercurySteam's hand is readable in the melee trails and finishers. I keep staring at the cobalt-suit lunge with a purple arc behind the strike. The boot lights and cracked stone impact are the kind of craft that makes me trust a Direct more than a feature bullet list.

Amiibo, Special Edition, and the Metroid Suit silhouette

Nintendo is not shy about the collectible layer. A Metroid Ravenous amiibo collection launches with individual Samus and Chozo Statue figures. A third figure, Samus (Metroid Suit), ships with the Special Edition that also includes the physical game and a SteelBook case. The Chozo Statue is larger than standard size, which is a whole mood for anyone who grew up treating those sentinels like save-room gods.

The Metroid Suit amiibo is the art direction thesis in plastic form. If the key art is magenta hunger, the Metroid Suit figure is the unlocked expression of that hunger. Special Edition pricing was not fully nailed in every region at announcement, but the fantasy is clear: steel case, physical cart, and the rare silhouette next to your Switch 2 dock.

Why this Switch 2 slot matters

Switch 2 already has a loud first-party calendar. Fortune's Weave is an SRPG appointment. Remake discourse around Young Link keeps the Zelda lane loud. Co-op experiments like Orbitals prove the eShop can still surprise. Metroid Ravenous is the side-view pressure release: one player, hostile moon, readable silhouette, a mechanic you can explain in one sentence. Eat or be eaten.

Lowkey, that simplicity is the flex. Nintendo put a date on the wall, hung key art that sells the feed fantasy at a glance, and let MercurySteam's combat language do the rest. HDR and 120 Hz on the feature list are the technical wink for the new hardware. Some fans want slower ruin poetry than Dread-style aggression, and that is fair. The art on the page, though, is coherent. Magenta as hunger. Cobalt and copper as suit identity. Teal moons and lava rooms as stage lighting.

January 28, 2027. Switch 2. Samus looks hungrier than the logo. Honestly, that is enough for me to keep the tab open.

Image credits & rights

Images on this page are hotlinks from the official Nintendo website(s), used with respect for their copyright.

• Metroid Ravenous on Nintendo eShop
• Nintendo Direct coverage (Nintendo Life)