Metroid Ravenous Is the 2D Handheld Banger Switch 2 Needed
Samus Aran eats her enemies now, and that grotesque little detail is somehow the least interesting thing about Metroid Ravenous. The Switch 2 exclusive, revealed during Nintendo’s back-to-back Directs and set to lead the console’s 2027 slate on Jan. 28, is the most stylish thing Nintendo has shown for the system since launch — a 2D Metroidvania built by the same team that quietly turned Metroid back into a handheld powerhouse a decade ago.
That last part is the point. Ravenous didn’t materialize from nowhere; it’s the endpoint of a remake pipeline Nintendo has been running for years. And for anyone who plays primarily on a handheld — Switch 2, Steam Deck, whatever’s charged — that pipeline produces exactly the kind of game the form does best: tight, map-driven, session-friendly 2D exploration you can pick up for ten minutes or lose a whole Sunday to.
From 3DS to Switch 2: MercurySteam’s Handheld-First Audition
Metroid: Samus Returns started this cycle in 2017 — a full Metroid 2 reimagining built for the Nintendo 3DS and led by MercurySteam, a studio whose only real qualification was Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Nintendo handed an unfamiliar team a franchise that felt dead and let genre expertise carry it. The payoff was Metroid Dread on Amazon, a 2021 Switch game that ran at a locked 60fps, moved like nothing else in the series, and earned a Game of the Year nomination. Dread is still the single best argument for the Switch as a handheld: a cinematic 2D action game that never once fought the hardware.
Ravenous is the same bet, escalated. MercurySteam — which Nintendo still hasn’t formally confirmed as the developer — is no longer being asked to reheat a classic. It’s being handed an original Metroid and a Switch 2 with considerably more headroom than Dread ever had. The enemy-eating powers in the debut trailer read as genuine mechanical iteration rather than a nostalgia hook, which is exactly what you want from a follow-up to a handheld-era high point.
Why the Remake Factory Is Quietly Good News for Portable Play
The pattern stretches well past Metroid. Grezzo auditioned on the 2019 Link’s Awakening remake and graduated to Echoes of Wisdom, an original that reinvented the top-down Zelda formula. ArtePiazza’s Super Mario RPG remake in 2023 and Velan Studios’ Star Fox project are the same move: prove you can handle the fundamentals on a safe remake, then get handed something riskier. Remakes can be tiresome reheats in the moment, but the byproduct is a steady supply of original, mechanically focused, mid-budget games — the exact profile that shines on a portable screen and in short sessions.
For a Switch 2 owner, the catch is right there in the word “exclusive.” Ravenous isn’t coming to Steam Deck or ROG Ally, so if your play is spread across devices, this is the kind of game that keeps the Switch 2 charged and in your bag rather than docked and forgotten. Meanwhile the marquee Ocarina of Time remake is the bigger headline but the thinner handheld proposition — a prettier version of a game you’ve already finished twice. Ravenous is the one to plan your January 2027 around: an original 2D Metroidvania, built by a team that has now spent nearly a decade proving remake work leads somewhere better.