Second Hunt

Second Hunt

Second Hunt is Metroid Prime Hunters rebuilt as a native game for Android and Windows. It plays the Nintendo DS original campaign and multiplayer, in true widescreen, with dual-stick controller controls (or keyboard and mouse on PC) and a one-screen HUD. It runs everything from your own copy of the game.

Second Hunt aims to modernize and add new features and content to the original Hunters experience. New weapons, playable characters, maps, and additional music are all already available and more is planned, all from user provided, legally obtained roms.

Second Hunt is a fan project and a fork of MphRead. It contains no game data from any Metroid game and isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo.

Beta 2 (0.2.0-beta, Android and Windows). Online play with crossplay between Android and Windows, up to 8 players, and new characters, suits and arenas imported from your own Metroid Prime discs. Playable start to finish, with some rough edges. See Known issues and What's planned.

What Second Hunt is

The game's logic (enemies, weapons, physics, rooms, scripting, bots) comes from MphRead, NoneGiven's C# recreation of the game, built from reverse engineering. Second Hunt adds everything else it takes to play it on Android and Windows: the title screen and menus, the gunship, star map and saves, the HUD, music and sound, cutscenes, controls, and LAN and online multiplayer. Both versions run the same game code; only the window, the controls and the sound output are each platform's own.

All the game's content comes from your ROM. The first time you launch the app you pick your copy of the game, and Second Hunt unpacks it into the app's own storage on your device or PC. The extras (HD suits, new characters, Echoes arenas) are made the same way, in the app, from your own Metroid Prime discs (SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > IMPORT GAMES). Nothing gets downloaded or uploaded, except a new version of Second Hunt when you ask for one (SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > UPDATES), and online play, which talks to the Second Hunt server only while you use ONLINE PLAY.

Since the game is drawn natively instead of through an emulated DS, the 3D runs in real widescreen at your screen's resolution, and at 60 fps instead of the DS's 30. The two DS screens become one: the HUD sits in the game view, and the touch-screen controls (morph ball, weapon select, scan visor, dialog buttons) move to buttons. Controls are made for a controller, laid out like Metroid Prime Remastered, with optional gyro aim and an optional touch overlay on Android. On Windows the keyboard and mouse use MphRead's own PC controls.

The aim is for it to play like the DS game. When something behaves differently (a speed, a timing, a fire rate, a sound), it is compared against the original game and fixed. Gameplay values aren't changed.

What's in Beta 2

Campaign

• The whole adventure from the opening to Gorea: Celestial Archives, Alinos, Vesper Defense Outpost, Arcterra and the Oubliette
• The game's own title screen, attract movie, file select (three files, with copy and delete), options and credits, rebuilt from the menus in your ROM
• The gunship: cockpit, ship menus, star map, planet select, and the landing and take-off movies
• Every cutscene, the HUD for every hunter, and the scan visor
• A pause map on Select, showing either the game's own map or a Prime-style map of the rooms you've explored
• The game's music and sound effects from your ROM, plus the title music and voices
• Both endings, with the credits roll and the results screen
• The MOVIES gallery: a movie opens once you've seen it

Multiplayer (Main menu > MULTIPLAYER)

• Up to 8 players in every mode, any mix of people and bots. Matches of 4 or fewer play exactly like the original.
• Bot matches on one device in every mode and arena, with adjustable bot level and time limit
• LAN matches between devices on the same network, Android or Windows in any mix, in every mode and with bots
• The Hunter License: your name, rank and stats, kept like the original. Hunters and arenas unlock the original way, or all at once with SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > UNLOCKS.
• SELECT HUNTER has two new characters next to the seven hunters, TROOPER and DARK SAMUS (see Imports below)
• A weapon ring: hold L2 and point with the right stick. It works while you move.
• REPLAYS: your last ten matches are saved (favorites are kept). Watch them at any speed, skip back and forward, follow any player, or fly a free camera.
• EXTRA rules under ADVANCED: EXTRA PICKUPS (the Pirate Blaster), EXTRA CHARACTERS and EXTRA ARENAS, each of which can be turned off to play like the original

Online play (MULTIPLAYER > ONLINE PLAY)

• Crossplay: Android and Windows players play together in the same games
• FIND GAME: pick the modes you want and search. Players are grouped (up to 8), then everyone votes for an arena.
• BROWSE GAMES: open games with their mode, arena, players and ping
• CREATE: host your own game with your rules and bots, open to anyone, friends only or by invite
• Friends: add people by name (NAME#tag), by trading friend codes like the original, or from your recent players. Invite friends to your game, or into a party that searches together.
• Voice chat: push to talk (hold R3, or the TALK button on touch), always on, or off. ONLINE SETTINGS has VOICE CHAT, PUSH TO TALK and CHAT switches.
• Text chat in the lobby and in a match: hold Select and point with the right stick for quick messages, or tap Select to type
• Tap any player's name for their license, your record against them, and MUTE, BLOCK or REPORT
• If the host leaves, another player takes over the match. If your connection drops, you rejoin where you were.
• Matches in LAN and online play are always in first person
• Online play is for ages 13 and up. The rules and what the server keeps are in docs/PRIVACY_NOTICE.md and docs/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, and in the game (the line at the bottom of OPTIONS). ONLINE SETTINGS can delete your online profile.

Imports (SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > IMPORT GAMES)

• Second Hunt can make extra content from your own copies of Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GameCube), Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) or Metroid Prime Trilogy. The disc is read where it is and never copied, and nothing from it is ever uploaded. Each import can be deleted again.
• HD Samus suits and morph balls from each game you import, picked under SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > SAMUS SUIT (third person and morph ball), plus an HD Samus behind the menus
• TROOPER (from Metroid Prime): a Space Pirate trooper with four skins, a wall cling and a Scout Drone alt form
• DARK SAMUS (from Echoes, or Corruption on the Metroid Prime Trilogy disc)
• Six Echoes multiplayer arenas with their music: Sidehopper Station, Spires, Crossfire Chaos, Pipeline, Spider Complex and Shooting Gallery, with Echoes movement (double jump, Gravity Boost)
• Playing with someone who hasn't imported a character? They still see you, drawn as the closest hunter in matching colors.

Controls (OPTIONS > CONTROLS, also SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > CONTROLS and the gunship's OPTIONS)

• Change which button does what: pick a function, then press its new button (X on a function adds a second button). For a controller on Android and Windows, and for the keyboard and mouse on Windows.
• Sensitivity and look invert for the controller, and on Windows a separate sensitivity for the mouse

Audio (OPTIONS > AUDIO, wired up like the original)

• Sound effect and music volume
• The sound test and music test, with all 425 sounds and 34 songs
• A QUALITY setting in place of the mic option. It changes how the music is played, live, mid-song:
  • ORIG: the DS sound
  • ORIG+FIX: the DS sound without the clicks and clipping
  • HQ+FIX: smoother
  • HQ+TONE: HQ+FIX with the DS's treble added back

Options (Options > SECOND HUNT SETTINGS, L / R to change pages)

• IMPORT GAMES (see Imports above) and the Samus suit
• First- or third-person camera (matches in LAN and online play are always first person)
• Music quality, the same setting as QUALITY on OPTIONS > AUDIO. In the pause menu the paused music plays while MUSIC is selected, so a change can be heard.
• Controls: the same page as OPTIONS > CONTROLS
• Gyro aim (Android): off, on, or only while zoomed or scanning, with its own speed and axis settings
• Touch controls (Android): auto (shown when no controller is connected), on or off
• Record replays on or off, and UNLOCKS to open every hunter, arena and movie at once
• Menus with both DS screens merged into one or side by side, crisp or smoothed pixel art, and the HUD's line art redrawn as clean lines or kept as DS pixels
• Pause map look and mode
• Credits, licenses, and a button to share crash reports (on Windows it opens their folder)
• Updates: CHECK asks GitHub for a newer Second Hunt and, if there is one, downloads and installs it in the game. It goes online only when you press CHECK, never on its own, and it only installs a release signed with the project's update key. It works from the main menu, not from a paused campaign or match.
• Lua mods, sandboxed so they can't touch your files or the network
• MODS and SECOND HUNT SETTINGS are on the game's OPTIONS page, where the Nintendo WFC stats option was

Getting started

Android. You'll need:

• An Android 8.0+ device with OpenGL ES 3.0
• A controller (recommended), though touch controls work too
• Your own Metroid Prime Hunters (USA) ROM, version 1.0 or 1.1 (game code AMHE). Other regions aren't supported yet, and the app will tell you if your file is one of them.

To install:

1. Download the APK from Releases.
2. Open it on your device. Android will ask you to allow installs from your browser or file manager.
3. On first launch, pick your ROM file. Second Hunt unpacks it once, and after that it goes straight into the game.

Windows. You'll need:

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with a graphics card or chip that has OpenGL 3.3 or newer
• A keyboard and mouse or a controller
• The same ROM as above

To install:

1. Download the Windows zip from Releases and unzip it anywhere.
2. Open SecondHunt.exe. Windows may say it protected your PC, since the app isn't signed with a paid certificate: click "More info", then "Run anyway".
3. On first launch, pick your ROM file or drop it on the window. Saves and settings are kept in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Second Hunt.
4. For LAN and online matches, Windows Firewall has to let Second Hunt through. Windows usually asks the first time you host or join, but the prompt can hide behind a full-screen window, and on a network set to Public nothing gets through until it's allowed. If other devices can't see your match or joining says no answer, go to Windows Security > Firewall & network protection > Allow an app through firewall, add SecondHunt.exe, and tick both Private and Public.

Updating. From Beta 1.3 on, go to Options > SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > UPDATES and press CHECK. If a newer version is out, Second Hunt downloads it, checks its signature, and installs it over the old one, keeping your saves and settings. On Android, the first update asks you to allow Second Hunt to install apps, then Android asks you to confirm the update. On Windows the game restarts by itself when it's done (keep the Second Hunt folder somewhere you can write to, not Program Files). Older betas don't have the button: install Beta 1.3 from Releases once, as before.

Controls

These are the defaults. OPTIONS > CONTROLS changes any of the game buttons below; the sticks, Start, Select and the buttons in menus and dialogs stay where they are.

Controller (Xbox-style layout: A bottom, B right, X left, Y top)

Input	Action
Left stick	Move
Right stick	Aim
R2 or B	Fire (lay bombs in morph ball)
A or L1	Jump (boost in morph ball)
X	Morph ball
Y	Scan (with the scan visor on), otherwise zoom
Tap L2	Zoom
Hold L2 + right stick	Weapon ring: point at a weapon (it stays picked when you let go of the stick), let go of L2 to equip it. Works while you move.
R3	Push to talk (online)
R1	Switch between missiles and the Power Beam
D-pad left / right	Previous / next weapon (only weapons you have, with ammo)
D-pad up	Scan visor on/off (in a match, where there's no visor: Power Beam)
D-pad down	Missiles
Select	Pause map (campaign). In an online match: hold and point the right stick for quick messages, tap to type one.
Start	Pause menu
A / B in dialogs	OK or YES / NO (the press that closes a dialog doesn't also jump or fire)
Android Back (button or gesture)	Pause menu. In a menu, the map or the ship it works like B. It never quits the game.

Keyboard and mouse (Windows; MphRead's own PC controls)

Input	Action
W A S D	Move
Mouse	Aim (its own sensitivity: OPTIONS > CONTROLS, under KEYBOARD & MOUSE)
Left click	Fire
Right click	Zoom, or scan with the scan visor on
Space	Jump (boost in morph ball)
C	Morph ball
Q	Lay bombs in morph ball (left click does too), scan with the scan visor on
E	Scan visor on/off
Mouse wheel	Next / previous weapon (only weapons you have, with ammo)
Arrow keys	The controller's D-pad: previous / next weapon, scan visor, missiles
Hold middle click	Weapon menu: move the mouse toward a weapon, let go to equip it
1 to 9	Power Beam, missiles, then each weapon in turn
Tab or Esc	Pause menu (Esc also backs out of menus, the map and the ship's screens)
M	Pause map (campaign only)
V	Push to talk (online)
Enter or T	Type a chat message (online match)
F3	Status line: short, detailed or off
F11 or Alt+Enter	Full screen
Space, Enter or left click in dialogs	OK or YES (Backspace or right click is NO)

In the menus, the arrow keys or W A S D move, Enter or Space choose, Esc or Backspace go back, Q / E change pages, and the mouse clicks anything the DS touch screen would. A controller works on Windows too, with the buttons above.

Touch: the overlay has a move stick on the left half of the screen and an aim stick on the right, with buttons for fire, jump, morph, missile, weapon (hold it and drag toward a weapon, like the DS stylus) and pause, plus visor, scan and map in the campaign, and TALK and CHAT online. The right half also works like the DS touch screen: double tap to jump, and in morph ball drag to roll and flick to boost. When missiles are selected, the missile button says POWER BEAM and switches you back. In dialogs, JUMP is OK/YES and FIRE is NO. The touch buttons keep these jobs whatever the controller's buttons are changed to.

Gyro: tilt the device to fine-tune your aim. The right stick still works as normal.

Known issues

Missing for now

Anything on the menus that isn't in yet shows a WORK IN PROGRESS box when you pick it, closed with its check.

• Only USA ROMs (1.0 and 1.1) work.
• No rumble yet. The original supported the DS Rumble Pak, but controller and phone vibration aren't hooked up.
• Some save details aren't kept yet: boss records, the rest of the game timer (the Gorea times are kept), a few stats and the artifact flags.
• The speaker setting on OPTIONS > AUDIO is saved, but SURROUND and HEADPHONES sound the same as STEREO for now.
• ERASE ALL DATA on OPTIONS isn't in yet.
• Arm cannons from the Prime games aren't imported yet, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond shows WORK IN PROGRESS on IMPORT GAMES.

Multiplayer

• After you quit a LAN match from the pause menu you can't rejoin it. Closing and reopening the app does rejoin.
• If a match ends early because players quit, only some devices may keep its replay.
• Once a game is created, its rules can't be changed. Back out and create a new one.
• The original's typed rules intro, with its sweeping camera, doesn't play at the start of a match yet.
• Bots sometimes catch on grates for a moment, and can get stuck in a few spots (Pipeline, Shooting Gallery).
• The Trooper's wall cling doesn't hold on curved walls.
• The Pirate Blaster doesn't leave a mark on walls yet.

Controls

• The DS showed a weapon bar on the bottom screen, which isn't drawn yet, so the only on-screen list of the weapons you're carrying is the weapon ring (hold L2).
• The touch overlay has no buttons for stepping through weapons, so use the weapon button (hold and drag) instead.
• The volume and screenshot buttons may not work on the title and menu screens.

Looks and performance

• Pop-ups like item pickups and the enter-ship prompt look rough and still need layout work.
• You may get short frame dips the first time a room or cutscene loads.
• The scan visor's box and icon aren't quite the right shape in widescreen.
• The HUD's energy and ammo bars don't flash and change color exactly like the original (low ammo, pickups).

Reported, still being checked against the original

• Looping or odd sounds in Piston Cave (Alinos)
• Flickering lava texture in Processor Core
• The Fault Line shock barrier is invisible and can be walked through
• The Docking Bay floating platforms slide you backward
• Some skybox parts spin at different speeds
• Council Chamber: what the shot switch triggers, and whether the bounce pad should always be there
• The small red sniper targets (hit with the Imperialist) don't stay folded
• Frame drops in Transfer Lock
• Which sounds play when you arrive through a portal (the Sic Transit escape, Elder Passage)
• Feel: the Judicator's fire rate, the Imperialist's auto-zoom, Slench's hit box, and whether the Volt Driver's charged shot should distort your visor

Devices: so far Second Hunt has only been tested on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 hardware (AYN Odin 2 Portal, Galaxy S23) and one Windows PC. Reports from other phones and handhelds are very welcome.

If it crashes: go to SECOND HUNT SETTINGS > crash log > SHARE to send the latest crash report (it doesn't contain any personal data). On Windows the same row says OPEN and shows the report's folder. Please attach it to a bug report on the Issues page, with your device and what you were doing.

What's planned

Next

• The multiplayer known issues above: rejoining after quitting, changing rules in a created game, the rules intro, bot pathing, wall cling and the blaster's wall mark
• Step-through weapon buttons for touch
• Sound timing like the original: what plays while paused and during escapes, and how music and sounds stop or fade when you die, go back to the ship or finish a match
• The rest of the save data: boss records, the rest of the game timer, stats and artifact flags
• ERASE ALL DATA on OPTIONS
• Fixes for the known issues above, each checked against the original game

Later

• Rumble on controllers and phones that support it
• Gyro aim on Windows, for controllers with a gyro
• Dedicated servers for online matches (players host them for now)
• The original's SURROUND and HEADPHONES speaker modes, and HQ music that keeps more of the DS's treble
• Unlocking the sound test the original way (after the true ending's results screen). For now it's always open.
• An optional Prime-style HUD with a mini map and weapon indicators and a radar
• European, Japanese and Korean ROMs
• Dual-screen devices, with the DS's second screen on a handheld's second display
• More HD content from games you own: each Prime game's arm cannon, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and the other hunters
• The rest of MphRead's to-do list (below)

MphRead's to-do list

MphRead marks every unfinished or uncertain spot in its code with a todo comment, and there are 1,457 of them. As of October 2026, 27 are fixed and 5 mo