The Grapple Beam ability is one of the most useful traversal tools in Metroid Dread. You can use it to swing from Grapple Points, latch onto magnetic surfaces, open Grapple Beam Doors, and clear Grapple Beam blocks. If that all sounds like fun to you, good news: you can totally get it early. In fact, it’s one of the steps you’ll need to complete if you want to insta-kill Kraid. Here’s how to pull it off.
First, you need to acquire the Varia Suit normally. Normally at this point, you’d return to Cataris for the standard Kraid boss fight, but if you’re trying to pull off that insta-kill, you’ll want to go back to Dairon instead. You want to head to the passage by the Purple Teleportal (even though you can’t use that yet). On the floor by the spinning metal enemy is a set of Beam Blocks you can shoot through. Refer to the screenshot below if you need help locating it. Everything after this point is straightforward.
Roll through the Morph Ball tunnel below and shoot through the Wide Beam Door to enter a hot room (which won’t harm you thanks to your new Varia Suit). Our goal is to the east, but it’s to your benefit to actually head west first – beyond the next volcanic chamber is a Network Station where you can save your game. One of the next steps can easily result in your death, and you don’t want to have to repeat everything up to this point.
Now return to the eastern heated room (and grab the Energy Part if you wish). There’s another Beam Block on the right-hand side you can shoot through. Below that is one of those red cracked walls you can explode through. Do so and enter the next room. Now here’s the trickiest part of the journey: you need to slide through the small opening, immediately jump into a U-turn to wall jump, and then reach the ledge high above the lava – falling in means game over. Once you pull this off, roll to the end, then repeat the slide and immediate jump to reach another safe ledge. Head through the next door to find an elevator to Artaria.
Ride it down, follow the path into a large vertical shaft, and drop all the way to the bottom. Take the right-hand door and shoot through the Missile Door in the proceeding room. Beyond that is the Chozo Statue chamber where you’ll find the Grapple Beam power-up. With that, you can keep sequence breaking by grabbing early Morph Ball Bombs next.
