Issue #29: Revenge of the Hunter – September/October 2017

So, do you know Samus?

Almost immediately after E3 2017's back-to-back announcements of Metroid Prime 4 and Metroid: Samus Returns, the thought occurred to me that you may not. Specifically that since some of our readers are young gamers, there's a real possibility that those back-to-back announcements of two new Metroid titles were met with more of a "Huh?" than a "Hooray!" – after all, it's been seven years now since she was last cast as the lead character in a game (Other M), and 10 years since she last headlined a game that most people actually liked (Prime 3). A decade is a long time! That's an entire new generation of Nintendo fans who've found their fandom through the adventures of Mario and Link and Pikachu, but probably not Samus Aran.

Let's change that! Let's bring everyone up to speed. In this 29th edition of NF Magazine, we're shining the spotlight on Nintendo's original leading lady and her epic sci-fi franchise that's just about to burst back into mainstream recognition with the arrival of Samus Returns. (A more appropriate subtitle there could not be.) We've prepared a complete History of Metroid retrospective for you all, going back to the very beginning of the Metroid franchise and tracing each game that's been released since. That leads into our final preview of Samus Returns, speculation on what the future holds in Prime 4 and more Metroid-related content elsewhere, like our review of the Metroid: Rogue Dawn fan game. Here's hoping that through this issue of NF you'll have your memories of Metroid renewed . . . or you'll be introduced to the adventures of Samus Aran for the first time!

Digital subscribers, the download link to grab the PDF edition of this issue will arrive in your email inbox on Monday, August 21. Keep an eye out for it!

The Magzter version for tablets/eReaders/etc. will follow before the end of the week.

And the print edition, as usual, is in production now and timed to be delivered to most every print subscriber by early September. (International delivery may take a little longer.) 

A special thanks to all of our new patrons! We've had lots of new sign-ups over the past several weeks, and I'm thrilled that this issue is going to be many people's first experience with NF. But we're just getting started! With the Switch hitting its stride and some incredible new games on the way soon, this is the perfect time to just be jumping into the Nintendo Force.

For our next issue, the spotlight will shift primarily to Super Mario Odyssey and its epic adventure full of wild places to explore, tons of costumes to wear and dozens of different enemies/people/inanimate objects to possess with a toss of Mario's Cappy-equipped cap. It's been a long time since the last true 3D Mario adventure, and we'll celebrate in style – especially since it'll also be our milestone Issue #30!

And if you are just joining the fun and want to get caught up on some of the NF you might have missed in the past, jump over to NintendoForceMagazine.com and check out the website store. We've got bundles of past issues there to make it easier to build up a collection.

Finally, if you ever have any questions or see any hiccups happen with issue delivery, use Patreon's Direct Message feature to get in touch with The Nintendo Force account here. I do my best to stay on top of the inbox and work with every patron one-on-one to resolve any issues with our issues. In general, though, if you keep your mailing address and card information up-to-date in your Patreon account settings, all you have to do is kick back, relax and let new NF magazines keep showing up in your inbox and/or mailbox!

Hope you all have been having a great summer, and I'll talk to you all here again soon!

~ Lucas M. Thomas