It retains the side-scrolling gameplay of previous 2D Metroid games and incorporates stealth elements.
Dread was conceived for the Nintendo DS in the mid-2000s, but was canceled due to technical limitations. It retains the side-scrolling gameplay of previous Metroid games, alongside the free aim and melee attacks added in Samus Returns . As the player explores, they discover new items and weapons, allowing them to access new areas.
Dread adds stealth elements, with Samus avoiding the EMMI robots in certain areas by hiding, reducing her noise, and using the Phantom Cloak, camouflage that makes her invisible but slows her movement. The Federation sends Samus Aran to ZDR to investigate.
Samus encounters a Chozo warrior deep underground, who destroys the exit, defeats her in combat and strips her suit of most of its abilities. Samus is instructed by her ship's computer, Adam, to find another path to the surface and return to her ship. The energy temporarily enables the Omega Blaster, with which she destroys the EMMI and regains some of her abilities.
In the Chozo sanctuary of Ferenia, Samus is captured by another EMMI but is saved by a Chozo named Quiet Robe, who deactivates them. The Thoha intended to destroy SR388, but Raven Beak, the Mawkin leader and the Chozo who attacked Samus, wanted to use the Metroids as a bioweapon to conquer the galaxy. He slaughtered the Thoha tribe and spared Quiet Robe so the Metroids could be controlled with his Thoha DNA, but upon his return to ZDR his plans were delayed by an X stowaway, while Samus eradicated the Metroids on SR388. Raven Beak reprogrammed the EMMI robots and lured Samus to ZDR to extract the Metroid DNA implanted in her during the events of Fusion, which would allow him to revive the extinct Metroids.
After Samus swears to stop Raven Beak, Quiet Robe opens a barrier to allow Samus to progress before he is assassinated by one of Raven Beak's robotic soldiers. Samus arrives on the surface, where she is attacked by the last of the EMMI; she destroys it by sapping its energy with her hand, a power gained from her Metroid DNA.
On the floating fortress of Itorash, Samus confronts Raven Beak, who has been masquerading as Adam.
