Metroid Dread was released on Friday (October 8) and fans of 4K have already got the game 19 years in the making running on PC.
YouTuber Gaminja uploaded a video on October 7, a day before release, of the Nintendo exclusive finale to the long running Metroid series running on the RYUJINX Nintendo Switch emulator. The gameplay demonstrates technically improved performance over the original version.
Running on the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card the gameplay shows the protagonist Samus moving in 4K resolution and at an uncapped framerate. The framerate is unstable, but generally holds between 100 to 110 FPS.
The technical hurdle the emulator still struggles to adapt to is the use of shaders, which are used to create more dynamic and natural lighting effects. On PC the game stutters when loading this graphical effect, though returns to smooth gameplay once it has loaded in.
The NME review of Metroid Dread gave the game five out of five stars, saying that it is a “decades-in-the-making celebration of 2D Metroid that’s unafraid to take risks by stretching into horror, Metroid Dread lives up to both halves of its name and serves as a satisfying cap to a story started in 1986″.
“Dread has a handful of screen-filling bosses and another ten or so smaller encounters, and you should expect to die in most of them. They’re unforgiving, but equally never unfair, and as ever the art is in learning attack patterns and perfecting timing”.
Our review praised the horror elements, excellent design and expansive exploration, but cited the difficulty spikes and clunky story delivery as some negatives surrounding the game.
Metroid Dread is out now on Nintendo Switch.
In other news, UK developer Codemasters, the team behind Dirt 5, is hiring for its “most ambitious and biggest game” in ten years, according to a recently discovered job listing.
The post ‘Metroid Dread’ emulated on PC before release appeared first on NME.
