What’s New in Metroid Dread 2.0 Update?

Metroid Dread launched last year to critical and commercial acclaim, proving that games do not need to be massive 30+ hours titles to be successful on the market.

Other than being a tightly designed experience, Metroid Dread is also a mostly bug-free experience, and anything serious has been fixed shortly after launch.

This doesn’t mean that there is nothing else to introduce or fix in Metroid Dread, as a new update brings some welcome new features as well as some new fixes that further improve the game.

What’s New in Metroid Dread 2.0 Update?

The Metroid Dread 2.0 update launched shortly after the airing of the February 2022 Nintendo Direct. The main additions included in the update are two difficulty modes called Rookie and Dread.

These two additional difficulty settings are on the opposite side of the difficulty spectrum. Rookie Mode is the easiest difficulty setting in the game, featuring better healing items, decreased damage from bosses, increased missiles available at the start of the game, and a more lenient counter window for some bosses.

Dread Mode, on the contrary, is the ultimate Metroid Dread challenge, a high difficulty mode where any damage received leads to a game over. As such, players will have to be perfect if they want to complete the game at this difficulty setting.

The Metroid Dread 2.0 also introduces some changes for the Results Screen and some general fixes. You can learn everything there is to know about the update by reading the update notes below.

New Difficulties Available

• “ROOKIE MODE” has been added to the game. This is a mode suited towards new players, with the following adjustments:
  • Dropped items from enemies now replenish greater amounts when picked-up.
  • Damage received from Boss attacks has been lowered.
  • Destructible Boss projectiles have been made easier to break than usual (excluding some attacks).
  • Increased number of missiles available when beginning game.
  • Made the finishing counters when defeating some Bosses easier to perform.
    • Selected when starting a New Game, and choosing “SELECT DIFFICULTY”.
• “DREAD MODE” has been added to the game. This is an extremely high-difficulty mode, where any damage taken from enemies or traps will lead to an instant Game Over.
  • Can be selected after clearing HARD MODE, when beginning a New Game, and choosing “SELECT DIFFICULTY”.

New Details Added to Results Screen

• Several new details have been added to the results screen that appears after clearing the game. These new details will not appear, however, for game files that were started prior to updating the game.

General Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Samus sliding down a surface and touching a frozen enemy would force the game to close, after the message “The software was closed because an error occurred” appears.
• Made several other fixes to improve playability and enjoyment of game.