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In Super Metroid, the space pirates are humanoid, crab-like creatures with large claws and varying colors to designate their ranks. However, in Metroid Prime, they're distinctly more reptilian, with weapons attached to their arms (a blaster and sword). In Prime 2, their design changes again, more insect like with claws again, and a similar story happens in Prime 3, where they take on a more reptile/mammal appearance again.

The typical Space Pirate from Super Metroid: super metroid concept art

A Space Pirate from Metroid Prime: Render of a Space Pirate from Metroid Prime

And from Prime 2: Echoes: Concept art of a Space Pirate from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Lastly, from Prime 3: Corruption: Render of a Space Pirate from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Based on the brief look we got from the Metroid Prime 4 trailer, the Space Pirates seem to be based off the design from Prime 3.

Is there any reason in canon that the Space Pirates look so different from game to game? Prime 3 outright states Samus visits their home world, yet that design is vastly different from the rest of the series. My initial assumption was that the term Space Pirate was a catch-all term for a faction, but that would imply species diversity within their ranks which they do not seem to have.

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  • There has never been much of any consistency in the appearance or capabilities of creatures in the series. In Metroid, the metroids were just life-sucking space jellyfish, and the leader of the pirates was a brain that needed a life support tank to survive, aned her lieutenant Kraid was less than ten feet tall. Already by Metroid II: Return of Samus, there were other kinds of metroids, not necessarily looking anything like the usual ones. In Super Metroid, Kraid was the size of a cathedral, and the Mother Brain could survive in open air and had a super-robot body to carry her around. Commented Dec 5, 2023 at 18:10
  • @Buzz at least in metroid 2, there was an explanation for why the metroids looked so different (different evolutionary stages), and its somewhat self-explanatory how mother brain changed (she was blown up before, so upgrades seem a no-brainer). Kraid not so much, lol. Commented Dec 5, 2023 at 18:32
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    Ridley and Kraid are also Space Pirates, so there has definitely always been species diversity. Commented Dec 5, 2023 at 19:08

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As per the Metroid Prime 4 footage shown in the Nintendo Treehouse Live event on 4/3/2025, the space pirates are a coalition of diverse species, rather than a single species rapidly changing over the course of the series.

Link to reddit post with the screenshot in question: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/comments/1jqnsyq/prime_4_once_again_confirms_the_space_pirates_are/

Link to youtube gameplay with the footage:

screenshot from metroid prime 4, the text reads: ""Alien morphology: space pirate. Ruthless, brutal, and bellicose intergalactic marauder. This is one example of the diverse alien life-forms that make up the space pirates.

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Home world:

"Space Pirate" probably is a catch-all term for a faction. They are pirates - they take what is not theirs and make it their own. When they are said to have a "home planet", they are actually living on a planet that they stole. They also stole the species name of the original inhabitants, who they slaughtered and enslaved. The space pirates are sometimes referred to as a "race" but this is more out of convenience than anything else. When you go to their home world in Prime 3, you aren't seeing the world that the species around you grew up on, what you are seeing would be similar to aliens from Alpha Centauri setting up shop in Antarctica.

Design changes:

The atmosphere on Zebes is pretty harsh and the space pirates had seized old Chozo technology that could be used to modify the genetics of living organisms. They used this technology to adapt themselves to the foreign environment. This is why the Zebes pirates looked like Zebes pirates. The pirates on Tallon IV were experimenting with phazon radiation and this resulted in changes to their anatomy as well, which explains why Tallon IV pirates look like Tallon IV pirates. The same thing happens at the planet Aether in Prime 2. The phazon in both instances mutates the pirates and it takes a lot of experimentation to find something that works, so this gives rise to the different appearances in the two games despite both sets of space pirates being caused by experiments with the same material. The anatomy of the pirates in Prime 3 on their "home world" is probably closer to their "original" anatomy, but is is entirely realistic to assume that samples of phazon and Chozo technology have been passed up the chain of command, which means that this could be yet another mutation.

A note about Kraid:

"Kraid" is often used as the name for the space pirate commander who is a giant lizard that shoots arms out of his bellybuttons. He and Ridley are both space pirate commanders but they look very different and likely are different species. We do learn that Kraid is actually a member of a specific species because we kill him once in Samus's Zero Mission and then in Super Metroid we kill both a baby and adult of the species. In Dread we find yet another one chained up deep underground on Planet ZDR, so this is the 4th member of Kraid's species that we have encountered just in the games.

Sources:

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    Hi, welcome to SF&F. This is a reasonable summary of the linked pages, but Wiki pages are not always free of unsupported speculation or misinterpretation. You could vastly improve this answer by citing the underlying references. Commented Jan 10, 2024 at 23:18
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    We kill Ridley a lot, yet they come back as explicitly the same individual. Why not Kraid too? Commented Sep 4, 2024 at 19:57

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