One of the pillars of the Metroid series in sequence breaking, a series of game-bending (but not breaking) actions that players can perform in order to obtain items or powerups out of the games intended order. Sequence breaks will usually require a fairly high degree of precision and understanding of the games mechanics, and is used by speedrunners to optimize their performance.
Below is a list of fairly common sequence breaks found in Metroid Dread. While not an all encompassing list, these are the “big ticket” items that let you progress in a different manor than originally intended. This section will be continuously updated with new techniques and skips that the average player can learn about! Please read for a description of the sequence break, along with supporting video to show you how these moves are performed.
Pseudo Wave Beam E.M.M.I. Skip
When Can You Do This? As soon as you start this game. Using a “Pseudo Wave Beam” requires no special powerups.
How To Do This? This particular skip will require you to get to a point in Artaria before you enter the first E.M.M.I. Zone (with the broken E.M.M.I.). The game wants you to slide through a small opening and then blow up a tumor from the other side, destroying the entrance and forcing you to complete the prologue section of the game. Instead, you can perform a series of jumps into the corner and fire your shot while pressing firmly to the right on your controller (see the video for an example) and your shot will hit the tumor, despite it being on the other side of the wall. After three hits, the tumor will ready to explode; this is when you want to stop jumping into the far corner and jump into the higher corner. Instead of pressing firmly to the right with your shot though, press down-right and you should see the tumor explode. This will allow you to skip pas the first EMMI Zone and tutorial section!
I found this video particularly helpful, so give it a watch and see the below video of my gameplay for the correct spots to jump in. This is tricky, so don’t be dismayed if it takes a few tries! As you can see from the below video, it was far from seamless when I tried!
Early Bombs
When Can You Do This? As soon as you acquire the Varia Suit
How To Do This? Once you’ve gotten the Morph Ball and the Varia Suit and taken the Red Teleportal Station back to Cataris, instead of following the intended path to Kraid, instead, head back to Dairon. You’ll need to get to get into the E.M.M.I. Zone at the selected point (see picture). You’ll need to perform a Slide Jump and then wall jump up to the higher platform. From here, you’ll just follow the directions as usual (see the walkthrough) in order to get the Bombs! Once you’ve got the Bombs, you’re good to go and face Kraid and give him the ol’ instakill.
Early Grapple Beam
When Can You Do This? As soon as you acquire the Varia Suit
How To Do This? Similarly to the early Bombs, once you get the Varia Suit, and once you’ve taken the Red Teleportal Station back to Cataris, instead of heading to Kraid, detour to Dairon. Get yourself to the room in which Energy Part #3 was acquired and shoot the floor on the lower right side platform. Blast the tumor and enter the new room. You’ll need to perform TWO Slide Jump‘s in this room in order to get across. If you miss the first, you’ll fall into lava but should be able to get yourself back up to safety soon enough. If you miss the second, you will almost assuredly die.
You’ll want to perform your first Slide Jump through off the first platform and then wall jump to grab the ledge. Proceed through the Morph Ball tunnel and then drop down to the lower platform. Perform another slide jump, and if done correctly, you’ll grab the ledge and be able to roll through. From here, take the elevator down to Artaria and drop to the bottom of the first room you come through. You’ll see the Grapple Beam awaiting you!
Drogyga Skip
When Can You Do This? As the name implies, you will want to do this while on route to the Drogyga boss fight. This involves use of the Psuedo Beam again, so no special skills are needed.
How To Do This? I personally found this the most difficult of any Sequence Break on this list, so once again, I want to encourage you to watch a video explaining in more detail how this is done. I found this video particularly helpful. This skip involves something called a DT Slide. I don’t know what that means, you don’t know what that means, it doesn’t matter, the important thing is this trick is going to let us shoot through walls. How you perform a DT slide is simple in theory, yet the timing can be tricky to nail down. Essentially, you want to:
- Charge up a shot and hold it.
- Slide into a wall from a fairly close proximity.
- While sliding, quickly do a “spin” on the controller, so if you’re sliding left, press towards the right and then the left again quickly on the joystick.
- Release your shot after your spin is finished and you’re facing the wall.
As tough as it sounds, the key to doing this right is to kind of do all these actions almost simultaneously. If done correctly, your charged beam shot will travel through a wall (see the first video for how this is done).
Once you’ve go this down, you’ll want to take that skillset and apply it towards the tumor in the wall of the room immediately after Drogyga. If you DT Slide correctly and take out the tumor, the wall will explode and a tunnel will open up allowing you to head straight to Ghavoran instead of facing off with Drogyga. This will need to be practiced and mastered as, frankly, trying to do this skip probably took me a longer time than actually fighting Drogyga would have, but with enough repetition, you should be able to nail this pretty quickly.
Early Gravity Suit
When Can You Do This? As soon as you obtain the Ice Missiles
How To Do This? This is actually pretty easy, relatively speaking. When you get the Ice Missiles, get into the room that leads you to where the Spin Boost was. Head to the very top, charge up your Shinespark, and quickly drop down into the water. Jump up and release your Shinespark. Despite you not having the Gravity Suit, you’ll still fly in water, landing on the ledge just above the Green Teleportal Station. Drop down and take the portal to Burenia, and follow the path as usual to the Gravity Suit (for quickness sake, take the short way, the path that also takes you to Missile+ Tank #9).
Early Pulse Radar
When Can You Do This? Possible as soon as Bombs/Grapple is acquired, however I will recommend Grapple since Bombs require the infinite bomb jump method
How To Do This? See video below (footage courtesy of Torvus)
Contributed By: Torvus Bolt
Early Super Missiles
When Can You Do This? Possible as soon as Speed Booster is acquired, and if the generator is online.
How To Do This? See video below (footage courtesy of Torvus). It has a top route and a bottom route. The top route is faster, and in terms of health it’s also safer, however, knowing to Shinespark mid-air is required (see Special Abilities). The bottom route only requires wall jumps, in case mid-air Shinesparks are too awkward for them to do
Contributed By: Torvus Bolt
Early Ice Missiles (Two Options)
When Can You Do This? Possible as soon as Plasma Beam is acquired.
How To Do This? There’s an easy way and a hard way. The easy way requires a Water Bomb Jump technique. To do it, you need to Bomb Jump from the floor, then un-morph before touching the floor again. Then you jump, and at the very peak of the jump, place a bomb and un-morph. Jump once more and morph immediately, then grab the ledge once you’ve successfully propelled yourself upwards.
Contributed By: Torvus Bolt
The hard way is the Speed Keep way which is only used if it’s a glitchless category. I only recorded it for the sake of doing so.
Early Cross Bombs
When Can You Do This? Possible as soon as Ice Missiles are acquired.
How To Do This? After the Shinespark store, you dash melee left to place yourself directly underneath the beam block, then you destroy it and jump while holding L so that you don’t Shinespark accidentally. You can start to spark as soon as you’ve placed a bomb. It’s possible to get up by un-morph jumping + wall jumps, but if you fall down you can always do a new Shinespark to get up
See video below (footage courtesy of Torvus)
Contributed By: Torvus Bolt
Early Screw Attack (Intended Way)
When Can You Do This? Possible as soon as Gravity Suit is acquired (intended) or once Space Jump is acquired (unintended).
How To Do This? See video below (footage courtesy of Torvus). The intended way is to store the Shinespark before the funny Jaffe room, then do a standing Shinespark towards the slide gap. You can do a ball spark, but the standing Shinespark intuitively places you inside the Jaffe room while the ball spark might have you slide back down. After that you go through the whole E.M.M.I. Zone towards the Screw Attack, after bombing through where the nearby Missile Tank is/was at. It will be nice to point out that you can go directly to Ghavoran via the Orange “Y” teleportal (used in early Pulse Radar), if you have Screw Attack before Experiment Z-57. That skips the Twin Robot Chozo Soldier fight in Burenia.
Contributed By: Torvus Bolt
Early Screw Attack (Space Jump Route)
When Can You Do This? Possible after acquiring the Space Jump.
How To Do This? See video below (footage courtesy of Torvus).
The unintended, but faster way has you go through a series of cold rooms and is quite dangerous. At the very least, it’s possible to heal yourself completely by using the Recharge Station nearby the first cold room. It’s required to do a Water Bomb Jump up to grab a ledge, then you Space Jump towards the opposing ledge where the Caterzilla spawn in groups of three. The key here is to grind against the ledge so that you eventually corner boost above the water level and can proceed to the Screw Attack.
Contributed By: Torvus Bolt
This section will be continually updated, so if you have any tips or tricks that you think would be useful, please let us know! Big thanks to Torvus Bolt for contributing such great tactics!