Random: Did You Know The Name Metroid Was Made By Combining 'Metro' And 'Android'?

Originally, it was going to be called 'Space Hunter'

Rounding out today's Metroid fun, celebrating the franchise's 35th anniversary, it's time to share an interesting little fact regarding the series' origins.

In fact, it's actually Nintendo of America doing the fact sharing; in a tweet posted earlier today, the company let fans in on how the series first got its name – looking through the replies, it seems that plenty of people were completely unaware that this was the case:

Here’s some of the original art of the characters and creatures from Metroid, including Ridley who looks much different than the version you may know most recently from Super #SmashBrosUltimate.

- Samus
- Ridley
- Kraid
- Zoomer pic.twitter.com/aPmI0MHiv6

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) August 6, 2021

"Fun fact: the game’s title comes from a combination of the words ‘metro’ and ‘android’."

We're not afraid to admit that this little nugget of info had also slipped by some members of Team NL, so we decided to do a little digging. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can see an interview that was originally hosted back in 2004 in Nintendo Dream magazine, before being shared and translated on Metroid Database.

The interview features Yoshio Sakamoto, Toru Osawa, and Hiroji Kiyotake, who discuss how the name came to be:

Kiyotake: There was one more staff member, and the two of us decided on it. We attached "android" to the "metro subway" and that's how we got "Metroid".

Sakamoto: However, before that, the game was called Space Hunter.

Osawa: Samus is a "bounty hunter", or perhaps I should say a little before she was created, she was a "space hunter". Wasn't "space hunter" written [to describe her] in the instruction manual? I mean space warrior.

Sakamoto: There wasn't enough time to correct it as "bounty hunter" [in the manual]?

Osawa: Yes, if I remember correctly.