A new wave of information has come from Nintendo and MercurySteam from Gamescom today for Metroid: Samus Returns. Several new abilities were shown off, both old and new, as well as a look at two new encounters (one of which should be very familiar to long time fans.)

The Wave Beam was immediately shown off in the game for the first time in the gameplay presentation, acting just like prior incarnations of it. Samus was also seen repeatedly jumping, meaning she has the Space Jump for this section of the demo. Lastly, the Grapple Beam was shown, acting as a means of pulling switches. It is automatically integrated with the new laser sight feature, turning the laser blue on grapple-able objects and also automatically activating should you fire your arm cannon on a blue sight.

The new ability was a new Aeion ability, the Phase Drift. This slows down time for everything except Samus. Enemies slowed to a crawl and even breaking blocks took longer to disintegrate. It was demonstrated effectively on a section with fireballs being fired across the screen too fast to effectively jump past without taking damage, but was reduced to nothing with the Phase Drift.

Lastly, enemy encounters. It was shown that the Metroid can evolve to have their own unique abilities from each other, demonstrated with an Alpha Metroid with fire abilities. A brand new enemy encounter was with the Diggernought (as heard by ear, but not written) which traps Samus into a crusher sequence where she has to escape through obstacles before a crusher catches up to her. Lastly, the Omega Metroid was shown off, being drastically different from past encounters, such as slamming its tail on the ground to shake down rocks from the ceiling above. Samus was seen wearing the Gravity Suit during this section too.

Special logs of the Chozo can also be unlocked by unspecified means called the Chozo Memories. They aim to shed new light on the race and their influence on the universe of Metroid.

This isn’t the last we will see of Metroid: Samus Returns from Gamescom, we will return with more news as it comes.

Source: Nintendo Gamescom Livestream