Metroid Dread Review: 7 Ups & 2 Downs

9. DOWN: The Loading Times Are Painful

The world of each Metroid game is divided into hundreds of rooms. Most rooms are separated by a hatch-door which Samus must pass through to enter. When Samus walks through these hatches, it takes one or two seconds to load the contents of the next room, which is annoying since it interrupts the flow of the gameplay.

However, the transition between leaving one room and entering another in Metroid Dread is seamless, Sadly, the same cannot be said when Samus Aran enters a new region. There are nine areas to explore in the game and Samus has to regularly visit each one multiple times.

While you transition from one area to another, the loading takes between 20-30 seconds, which is surprisingly long for a mainstream game for the Nintendo Switch. Sometimes, it can take over a minute, which is the type of loading you’d expect from a Commodore 64, not a modern console.

It may seem like a minor gripe but it’s quite aggravating near the end of the game when you’re travelling back and forth a lot, trying to locate the last few upgrades.