Leading the Metroid franchise since its inception in 1986, Samus Aran is the subject of one of the most well-known surprise endings in video gaming. The reveal of her gender at the conclusion of the original game was a landmark moment in the medium, paving the way for other female protagonists afterward, and each subsequent Metroid game revealed more about her character and backstory, little by little.
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While Metroid is not one of Nintendo’s best-selling IPs — it’s certainly no Mario or Zelda in terms of public popularity — her reputation, bolstered by appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series, goes beyond games. But even with her general popularity, there are some factoids about Samus that even the most dedicated Metroid fans may have missed.
1) Samus Was Almost In Fortnite
When PlayStation’s Kratos and Xbox’s Master Chief made their debuts in the battle royale phenomenon Fortnite, many players expected Samus to show up as Nintendo’s own representative. According to leaks, a Samus skin in Epic Games’ free-to-play title was in the cards, but as we know by now, this never materialized.
According to former Epic Games chief creator officer Donald Mustard (via IGN), the studio never got to add any Nintendo representative to the game due to a fundamental disagreement — Nintendo only wanted its characters to show up on Nintendo platforms, and Epic Games didn’t want to wall off any characters based on platform. It’s a shame that the collaboration never materialized, though one has to wonder how Samus would carry an assault rifle when she already has her famous arm cannon.
2) Samus Makes A Cameo In A Dead Or Alive Game
Samus has made some brief appearances in other video games over the years, including a cameo in Super Mario RPG, during which she’s “resting up for Mother Brain.” Even mature titles like Bayonetta 2 and Fatal Frame IV have Samus-themed costumes for their respective protagonists. But one of her oddest cameos came in 2011’s Dead or Alive: Dimensions for the Nintendo 3DS.
Dead or Alive studio Team Ninja was one of the primary studios behind Metroid: Other M, so it has a strong connection to the series. One of the stages in Dead or Alive: Dimensions is directly based on the Geothermal Power Plant section from Other M, and it prominently has Metroid baddie Ridley wreaking havoc and damaging players. While Samus is unfortunately not a fully playable character in Dimensions, she shows up in Morph Ball form to dispatch the purple Space Pirate with a Power Bomb.
3) Brie Larson Wants To Portray Samus In Film
Academy Award winner and Captain Marvel star Brie Larson has her sights on another badass space-faring woman to play in a movie. Larson has not made it a secret that she’s a big fan of the Metroid series, in large part due to Samus being its protagonist. She’s dressed up as Zero Suit Samus for Halloween in the past, and expressed explicitly on social media that she wants to make a Metroid movie.
For the release of Metroid Dread in 2021, Larson even shot a Nintendo-sponsored ad for the game on her Instagram, showing her playing the game on her Nintendo Switch OLED while she describes why Samus was an influential character to her. At this point, a Metroid movie has never come close to being greenlit, but with the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie (which Nintendo co-produced) and the upcoming Zelda movie, maybe Larson will get her shot one day.
4) Samus’s Backstory And Her Parents’ Names
Most Metroid fans know the general beats of Samus’s backstory: she grew up in a colony before a Space Pirate raid led by Ridley left her orphaned, and she was subsequently raised and trained by the bird-like Chozo to the point where she excelled beyond peak physical conditions normally displayed by humans. She later served under General Adam Malkovich for the Galactic Federation, but she then became a renowned bounty hunter.
But even devoted fans probably don’t know a lot about her parents, which is fair, as the games don’t really cover them at all. Instead, we have to turn to the Metroid manga, which tells us that her parents are Rodney and Virginia Aran. If you dig deeper into the Metroid lore hole, you might find a Nintendo Power-published story called “Blood of the Chozo,” which names her parents Thea and Avram Aran, and gives her a younger brother named Solomon Aran. At this point, this story is considered non-canonical, and no media that came after ever references it.
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