There are a lot of great games like Metroid Prime. Not all of them are first-person shooters, and not all of them take place in the future.
Metroid didn’t come out for the Nintendo 64 because no one knew how to turn the series into a 3D game. Retro Studios didn’t try it until 2002, with Metroid Prime, and they hit it out of the park. Even after more than 20 years, it is still seen as one of the best games ever made.
The fact that the game is so unique has helped it get these awards. There aren’t many games like Metroid that are in 3D, and even fewer that are played from the first-person point of view. Even though they are hard to find, these great games might help you feel better in the same way that Metroid Prime does. They aren’t all first-person shooters, and they don’t all take place in science fiction, but they all let you explore, solve puzzles, and feel like you’re getting stronger.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
At the time Arkham Asylum came out, no one thought that games based on popular superheroes would be very good. The first Arkham game made by Rocksteady, though, changed everything. Arkham Asylum is not only good for the genre, but it can also hold its own against the most famous games of its time.
Like Metroid Prime, Batman’s upgrades help him get into new parts of the facility. The main character, on the other hand, talks a lot more than in the Nintendo game, and players are given a little more direction about how to move through the story. This is fine, though, because fans love hearing Kevin Conroy voice the famous character more than anything else.
Metroid Dread
If you’ve never played a Metroid game before, you might be wondering what to do after Prime. Metroid Dread is the best place to go if you can’t find the sequels. It comes out in 2021 and is the first 2D Metroid game since 2008.
Playing any other 2D Metroid game shows how true Metroid Prime is to the formula of the series. Dread is like the other games in the series in that it can be hard. This makes players want to explore and find as many upgrades for Samus as they can.
Dark Souls
Demon’s Souls started its own game genre and put FromSoftware on the path to becoming a legendary company. But with Dark Souls, the developer made a world that makes sense and can be explored like a maze.
Metroid Prime blocks off areas with upgrades found in the world. Dark Souls tells players they are in the wrong place by how strong the enemies are in that area. Most people like the series because they like the feeling they get when they beat enemies that used to beat them.
System Shock
System Shock is a great game for people who like immersive simulation games and is also a great way to learn about history since it came out in 1994. It might be a bit of an understatement to say that it has held up well over time.
It makes me think of Metroid Prime, where you walk through a broken world to find out what’s going on. System Shock is an immersive simulation, not an adventure game, so it focuses on gathering resources and assigning stats.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
If you play Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for an hour or so, you can see that its main inspirations are the Souls games from FromSoftware and Metroid Prime. This is good news for Metroid fans.
Combat and leveling up might remind players of the first game, but exploring is a lot like Samus’ adventures. Even a 3D map helps players figure out where they are. With new upgrades, players can go back to places they’ve already been and reach places they couldn’t before.
Doom
Even though Metroid Prime isn’t a typical FPS, it has a lot in common with the best games in the genre. Doom is a great game because of its fast-paced action, unique monsters. And confusing levels where it’s easy to get lost. This last part is the same as Metroid Prime.
Players won’t beat levels in Doom by finding a new weapon or upgrade, but they do have to pay attention to where they are and remember where they’ve been to figure out where to go. The newer games offer the same kind of challenge, but they do it in a much simpler way.
BioShock
System Shock is a big inspiration for BioShock, which makes sense since System Shock 2 was directed by Ken Levine. But the 2007 FPS is a lot easier for modern gamers to understand. Even though it still has a creepy and sad atmosphere.
After Rapture has already fallen, players go there to find out what happened during the story. The powers players earn and improve are more often used in battle than to solve puzzles, though.
Turok
Turok is related to Metroid Prime in a unique way. Iguana Entertainment, the company that made Turok, was also started by the same person who started Retro Studios. When you play the old FPS game for the N64, you can see even more similarities between the two games.
There is a lot of fighting in each level. But the main goal is to find keys hidden around the map so you can move on. This makes exploration the most important part of Eggy Car game. This idea is taken even further in Turok 2, which has a non-linear structure so that players can play the game in their own way.
Powerslave
Powerslave would have to be the only first-person shooter that really felt like Metroid Prime. But there is one small problem. If you want to play Powerslave the way it was meant to be played. You need to play on a console or the recent remaster, Powerslave Exhumed.
This is a real Metroidvania game, where players use upgrades and new abilities to get to new parts of a map that is all connected. Strangely, the old PC version doesn’t have these features and is a more linear FPS. This is one of the few times that the console version of an FPS game from the 1990s is better than the PC version.
