New Metroid Game "Ravenous" Leaks Through Brazil's Ratings Board
A new, unannounced Metroid game titled "Metroid Ravenous" leaked on July 1, 2026 through a listing on Brazil's Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública (Ministry of Justice and Public Security) classification database, which was removed shortly after being spotted but not before screenshots spread across social media. The listing cites a 2026 production year and a "not recommended for children under twelve" age rating with violence as the sole content descriptor, though Nintendo has issued no official confirmation.
Government Paperwork Beats Nintendo to Its Own Announcement
There's something almost poetic about how this leak happened. Nintendo has spent decades cultivating a reputation as one of the industry's most disciplined companies when it comes to controlling its own messaging. And yet here we are again, with a major franchise reveal slipping out not through a hack, not through a disgruntled employee, but through a routine regulatory filing in a country's classification bureaucracy.
This is genuinely becoming a pattern worth naming. Brazil's ratings board has flagged unannounced Nintendo titles ahead of their official reveals multiple times now, and the mechanics of why are pretty mundane once you understand them. Games need regional classification approval before they can legally be sold in Brazil, and developers have to submit titles to the board regardless of whether they're ready to talk about them publicly. The database is searchable, dedicated leak-hunters check it constantly, and the moment something unfamiliar shows up, it's screenshotted and circulating within the hour.
Brazilian journalist Felipe Lima added an extra layer of credibility to this particular leak, noting that the rating documentation was reportedly based on approximately 41 minutes of actual gameplay footage submitted for classification purposes. That's a meaningful detail. A 41-minute footage submission isn't a placeholder filing for a project still in early concept work; it strongly suggests Metroid Ravenous is well into active development rather than something barely off the ground.
What We Actually Know, and What's Still Just Speculation
It's worth being disciplined about separating the confirmed details here from the fan theorizing that's already exploded around them, because there's a real gap between the two.
Here's what the leaked listing actually states:
- Title: Metroid Ravenous
- Production year: 2026
- Age rating: 12+ (not recommended for children under 12)
- Content descriptor: Violence
That's essentially the entire confirmed record. No platform is named. No release window beyond the production year. No developer credit. No genre confirmation. Everything beyond those four bullet points is community inference, some of it reasonably well-grounded, some of it pure wish-casting.
Why Fans Think This Is a 2D Metroid Sequel
The dominant theory circulating is that Ravenous is the direct successor to Metroid Dread, the 2021 side-scrolling Metroidvania that's widely credited with reviving the franchise's 2D lineage after nearly a decade-long gap and went on to earn a Game of the Year nomination at The Game Awards. The timing lines up reasonably well: Dread launched in 2021, and a 2026 production year would put roughly five years between entries, a gap that's plausible for a sequel-scale project rather than a smaller spinoff.
The subtitle itself is also doing some work in the fan theorizing. "Ravenous" reads as a thematic continuation of the isolation and psychological tension Dread built its identity around, which has fans leaning toward this being a tonal sibling rather than a soft reboot or spinoff experiment.
Who's Actually Making It? That's Where Things Get Murky
This is genuinely the most contested part of the whole story, and it's worth walking through carefully rather than picking a side prematurely.
The obvious candidate on paper is MercurySteam, the Spanish studio behind both Metroid: Samus Returns and Metroid Dread, and the developer widely credited with reinvigorating the franchise's 2D side. MercurySteam has also previously confirmed it had two large-scale undisclosed projects in its pipeline, one of which turned out to be the fantasy title Blades of Fire, released earlier this year. If the second undisclosed project is Ravenous, the pieces fit cleanly.
But there's a real complication working against that theory. MercurySteam has had a genuinely rough stretch recently. Following Dread's success, the studio faced serious allegations about workplace culture, including reports of enforced 10-hour workdays and terminations for employees who took previously approved time off. Blades of Fire then underperformed commercially, which led to layoffs at the studio. Some reporting even suggests MercurySteam described itself as being "between production cycles" around this period, language that would be unusual for a studio simultaneously in the middle of developing a major new Metroid entry. Whether MercurySteam is actually behind Ravenous, or whether Nintendo quietly handed the project to a different team entirely, simply hasn't been confirmed by anyone with direct knowledge.
Retro Studios, for what it's worth, is widely considered unlikely to be involved, given the team just wrapped Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which released across Switch and Switch 2 in 2025.
A Second Leak Adds Even More to the Story
If a single unannounced Metroid game wasn't enough to get the fanbase buzzing, leaker account CentroLeaks added fuel to the fire shortly after the initial Brazil listing surfaced, claiming that a second, entirely separate Metroid title is also reportedly in development. No additional detail has accompanied that claim beyond the assertion itself, and it should be treated with appropriately more caution than the Brazilian government filing, which at least has an official paper trail behind it. Still, if accurate, it would mean Nintendo is quietly developing two new Metroid projects simultaneously, which would be a genuinely unusual level of investment for a franchise that's historically released games sparingly.
Why This Would Be a Big Deal for Nintendo Right Now
| Metroid Release | Year |
|---|---|
| Metroid Dread | 2021 |
| Metroid Prime Remastered | 2023 |
| Metroid Prime 4: Beyond | 2025 |
| Metroid Ravenous (unconfirmed) | 2026 (leaked production year) |
Metroid is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and a new 2D entry landing during that window would line up neatly with how Nintendo has handled other franchise anniversaries recently, staggering nostalgia-driven content and new releases across an extended celebratory period rather than front-loading everything into a single month. It's also worth noting that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, despite ending an infamously long development cycle, reportedly didn't perform as commercially strong as Nintendo had hoped. A well-received 2D follow-up in the Dread mold, a game style that's already proven it can be both a critical and commercial success for the franchise, would be a logical way to keep momentum going on the IP.
An Increasingly Crowded Release Calendar
Whatever Ravenous turns out to be, Nintendo is going to need to navigate an unusually packed back half of 2026 to give it room to actually land. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is already confirmed for later this year. GTA 6 has locked in a November 19 release date that's already reshaping how every other publisher plans their fall and holiday windows around it. Squeezing a major new Metroid entry into that same stretch, assuming Ravenous is even targeting a 2026 launch rather than just a 2026 production start, would require some careful scheduling on Nintendo's part.
When Might Nintendo Actually Confirm This?
Nintendo has stayed completely silent on the leak so far, which is standard practice and shouldn't be read as either confirmation or denial. The most likely venues for an official reveal, based on Nintendo's usual calendar, are its typical September Direct, where the company traditionally details games slated for the months and year ahead, or Gamescom in August, where Nintendo generally makes upcoming titles playable to the public in some capacity. Given that a game this far along in a country's ratings classification process rarely stays unannounced for long, an official reveal within the next couple of months would track with how these situations have historically played out for Nintendo.