Gaming can be an expensive hobby. Given that, it’s only natural that the average buyer would want to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth. After all, there is a litany of games available that boast anywhere from dozens to potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay available to the player. So when Metroid Dread releases with a playtime of approximately 7-8 hours for a standard playthrough and 12-13 hours for a 100% completion, it does raise some eyebrows from a purely hours-to-dollars viewpoint. However, there is an argument to be made that Metroid Dread’s length is not a case of playtime falling short of a worthy investment. Rather, Metroid Dread leverages its shorter playtime into a genuine example of "quality over quantity," creating an experience that becomes far more intimate and familiar due in no small part to its shorter playtime.

Firstly, we need to talk about a gameplay element that is integral to the Metroid series since its inception: backtracking. While players will be constantly pushing their way forward as they play through Metroid Dread, there are several instances where a metaphorical (or oftentimes literal) wall is hit, and the player must retread through familiar areas in order to progress. While some may find backtracking to be tedious in practice, it is an important factor to the overall feel of Metroid Dread. Finding a barrier that can only be traversed after finding a future upgrade give players something to look forward to as they continue to upgrade their arsenal. Returning to clear these obstacles allows players to leverage their familiarity with an area to find new ways to progress as well as uncover previously inaccessible secrets. A huge part of why this works is due to the game’s shorter length.

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Image via Nintendo

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Were Metroid Dread to increase its playtime by adding more zones for players to explore, it would also lengthen the amount of time it takes to move from one zone to another. Given that even light backtracking can feel tedious when done poorly, increasing the distance needed to travel between upgrade-locked points of progression simply to meet an arbitrary length requirement would only cause the pacing to suffer. This could potentially be alleviated by having players progress through zones in a more linear fashion, either by reducing the need to jump from one zone to the other to find the next area to progress, or locking off previous zones entirely once all necessary upgrades have been obtained to maintain forward momentum. But at this point, you aren’t really playing Metroid anymore. You’re playing a linear 3D platformer, and you’ve somewhat lost the feeling of working your way through a series of interconnected labyrinths.

Metroid Dread’s levels are also incredibly dense, turning in on each other, connecting and reconnecting in unexpected places. Increasing the size of the levels would increase the playtime, but at a certain point, they would become incomprehensible to the average player. Once you force players to start taking detailed notes in order to comprehend your map, you’ve made a mistake. The ability to intuit the way forward based on your familiarity with an area you’ve spent a significant amount of time in is one of the most satisfying reasons to play Metroid Dread in the first place. Increasing the size and/or complexity to help fulfill a time requirement does nothing to improve the game, and could be a sizable detriment to boot. Nintendo could elect to make the levels less dense and complex as a trade-off to increasing their size. But that only takes the game further away from the sense of exploration and problem solving that made the series great in the first place.

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Image via Nintendo

In addition, having a shorter length that can be beaten in mere hours only heightens the sense of intimacy players form with the game. With a shorter length, even later stages can remain fresh in players’ minds, allowing them to tackle repeat playthroughs with a growing sense of prowess and efficiency. Anyone who’s replayed a favorite game multiple times will tell you about the feeling of looking back at your initial time playing the game; breezing past sections that once had you scratching your head, taking down bosses in a fraction of the time it used to take you. Some may argue that putting this much of the game’s potential value in playing it for a second or third time is a waste, and resources would be better spent building a longer game to extend the fun of the initial experience. But given how many new games are released every month, it can be difficult to find the time to go back and replay old games in between keeping pace with the current offerings. Replaying a game for the second time can be as or even more rewarding than the first time, and Metroid Dread’s shorter length makes it an even more appealing idea. While not every player may be interested in speedrunning as a concept, it’s in this intrinsic manner that Metroid Dread rewards repeat playthroughs that has catapulted it to the top of speedrun.com. Watching players flex their memory of the game’s layout, becoming more and more efficient as each upgrade is obtained is nothing short of poetry in motion, and also serves as a new way to experience Metroid Dread after you’ve seen everything it has to offer.

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Image via Nintendo

Speaking of upgrades, Metroid Dread’s shorter length allows the developers to better pace out the drip-feed of new upgrades in a way that maintains a brisk pace for players. Just when you think you’ve gotten stuck, a new upgrade suddenly opens up whole sections of the map. If you were to increase the length of Metroid Dread, you would have to pace out the discovery of upgrades as well to keep this delicate balance. With a longer time between upgrades, this would potentially make certain sections feel staler, as you keep waiting and waiting for an upgrade to open up all those blocked-off areas you keep running past. This could be helped by adding a greater quantity of upgrades to sprinkle in over a greater period of time. But then you run the risk of handing players a bloated skillset, with some skills being nothing more than glorified keys for the sake of a longer playthrough. By keeping the playtime shorter, the developers are able to have a steady stream of upgrades that always feel fresh and useful as soon as they’re acquired.

Nobody is saying that we wouldn’t all like more Metroid Dread. However, part of why it is such a beloved franchise is that it knows exactly what it needs to be for the genre it helped invent. By having a focused vision that is paced and executed near flawlessly, it delivers on the experience of exploring an alien environment with astonishing prowess. Though a greater playtime would mean that we get to enjoy it for that much longer, it runs the risk of upsetting the delicate balance of gameplay elements that allows it to succeed. Metroid Dread’s length, far from being a weakness, is one of the most crucial factors tying the whole experience together. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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