We have to take into account that Metroid has been in the darkness for quite some time. The last big entry (and probably the biggest one ever in terms of budget and scale) was Other M in 2010, and it barely sold over 1 million. After that we only got Federation Force, which bombed very very hard and a remake of one of the most obscure numbered Metroid entries on a console that was way past its prime. That one sold like 500.000 units I think.

Dread selling anything between 3 and 5.5 million lifetime is an absolute win. Not only will be the best selling game on the franchise, it will be remembered as one of the biggest comebacks in gaming history.

BTW, completely unrelated, there's something about Mercury Steam that I find quite curious. They have worked with the two franchises that give name to the Metroidvania genre. However, when they worked with Castlevania, they stripped off its exploration roots and turned it into a linear 3D action game. But when they had to work with Metroid, they were very careful about being faithful to the franchise's roots.

That's because the producer was still Sakamoto and one of the two directors is also from Nintendo. It wasn't only Mercury Steam.

It's also worth noting that Castlevania: Lord of Shadows was a very good game despite the switch in genre.

I want a Super Metroid remake and Prime HD port. Feels like it will never happen.

I'm sure a Super Metroid remake will happen in the future. There have been rumors of Metroid Prime getting an HD remaster for a while. Maybe it'll happen sometime before Prime 4 comes out?

It's probably at half of Prime's lifetime numbers in its first month (~3 weeks).

Holiday sales will tell us a lot. Is it going to dwindle after the first few weeks because everyone who wanted it picked it up when it came out (think Zelda: LA's remake) or will it be a solid holiday seller.
Hopefully it'll at least be over 2 million worldwide at end of year.

I'd think minimum it will sell is 3 million. I think 4 million is likely. 5 million is a maybe and probably depends on price cut at some point and if future Switch Metroid games reignite a selling spree for Dread when they come out.

Awesome game that deserves all its sales and then some.
It would be amazing if it crosses 5 million.

For me this is my favorite of the 2d Metroids, narrowly edging both Super and Fusion and its second behind Prime 1 only.

A great game. I'm definitely conflicted. The fact that I'm questioning myself if this tops Super M for me says plenty.

It definitely deserves high sales.

I went into this game trying to keep an open mind and do my best to get as much out of it as I could, but also kind of expecting a 7/10 experience that I'd probably quit out of frustration before finishing.

Instead it blew me away and is easily among my top 10 Switch games. If it wasn't for Monster Hunter Rise this would be my GOTY.

Switch seems to have the habit of making even moderate franchises explode in sales and popularity.

I guess we all want Metroid to be bigger... But the fact that a 2D metroidvania game has managed this level of success should be applauded and hopefully means Nintendo will give it more attention going forth... And that is a win for all of us (assumedly) Metroid fans.

I have sadly not been able to give the attention it deserves in my gaming time, but hoping to get there at some point, Super Metroid is one of my favorite games of all time.