Pyrosphere door glitch



The Pryosphere Door Glitch, also known as the Sector 3 Door Glitch, is a potentially disastrous bug in Metroid: Other M involving a locked door found in the basement of the experimental simulated desert area that completely halts progress, leaving Samus unable to continue without starting over or using an old game save taken before the bug occurred. Consequently, copying the save files to the other does not solve the issue. Nintendo have later acknowledged the glitch and revealed its cause.

The cause
In the room after the large area where she was chased by Vorash, Samus must battle a group of Zebesians and Novas to receive authorization to use the Ice Beam from Adam. After that, Samus will reach a long chamber which locks her inside. To unlock the doors Samus must defeat a group of Dessgeegas. Once all Dessgeegas defeated, the doors will be unlocked.

Should Samus, for any reason, backtrack at this point to the room where she received the Ice Beam, the door in the basement of the experimental simulated desert area will remain locked permanently, and she will not be able to continue on further in the game.

To avoid the glitch, Samus exit the room via a newly unlocked door near a tall cliff down at the end of the corridor, and proceed as normal before doing any backtracking to any previous rooms.

Nintendo has set up a program that allows players affected by the glitch to send in their save data on an SD card so that their data will be fixed. It is unclear whether or not a re-release of the game with the bug completely fixed is planned.