Camera Lock (Cam Lock) is an exploit of the Melee Counter Tutorial (commonly referred to as the "Melee Tutorial Cutscene") at the start of the game, and it can only be done in Artaria. It allows Samus to walk through doors, through breakable blocks, flippers (levers), and liquids as if walking through air, because the objects aren't actually there.
At the beginning of Metroid Dread, Samus goes through a cutscene teaching her how to perform a Melee Counter, where Samus encounters a pink enemy Muzby (called "Pinky") in the next room after sliding through a morph ball tunnel. If Samus is able to destroy the Pinky before activating the tutorial cutscene (and before Pinky respawns), Pinky will disappear from the cutscene when Samus goes to melee counter it, causing the game's camera to lock in place (in the very next room).
The camera will remain locked to this room, and objects throughout the rest of Artaria will become unloaded, meaning the game will treat doors, water, lava, damaging cold environments and damaging heat environments inside of rooms, destructable blocks, enemies, and certain invisible game triggers as if they were not there. Samus can blindly navigate Artaria and access places she normally wouldn't be able to access, like the Screw Attack Room.
The only way to regain control of the camera (unlock it and load in all of the objects in the game) is to trigger a potential camera event. You can do this by doing a Standing Shinespark in any direction. If Samus is in Morph Ball form, she will perform a Ballspark instead, which will not trigger a camera event, meaning that shinesparking while in ball form is safe to use when traversing Artaria, and is actually recommended as part of Using Cam Lock.
¶ Examples
Examples of using Camera Lock Glitch include Early Screw Attack, and opening the Missile Door to Artaria-Burenia Elevator.
¶ Camera Lock
¶ Setup
-
Trigger the Melee Tutorial cutscene at the beginning of the game.
-
Perform Elaine Skip using a Pseudo Beam.
-
Do Early Corpius using a Pseudo Beam, but don't fight Corpius. Instead, enter the boss arena, and then reload to checkpoint (- > System > Load Last Checkpoint).
-
This will reload the Melee Tutorial cutscene. Samus will appear outside (left) of the morph ball tunnel leading to Corpius' boss door. The Melee Tutorial cutscene is now restored, and you are free to travel through EMMI zones.
-
After making your way to Charge Beam, you will trigger the Melee Tutorial Cutscene again by going through the morph ball tunnel a second time. From here, go straight to Corpius' arena and reload to checkpoint, avoiding EMMI zones along the way. You will need to restore the Melee Tutorial Cutscene by reloading to checkpoint before defeating Corpius.
-
From here, you can either do Corpius Before Spider Magnet, or get Spider Magnet from EMMI 02 and then go and defeat Corpius, avoiding the Melee Tutorial cutscene along the way. Once Corpius is defeated, you won't be able to reload from Corpius' room, as the boss checkpoint trigger will disappear.
-
Once Corpius is defeated, avoid entering the Melee Tutorial morph ball tunnel from the left from this point onward, as this will trigger the cutscene. You can safely enter the tunnel from the right, however. After Corpius is defeated, the boss checkpoint trigger will disappear and you won't be able to reset the Melee Counter cutscene once again.
Once you've performed these steps, Camera Lock will be setup and ready to use. You can trigger Cam Lock at any time after this point by destroying the pink enemy and then going through the morph ball tunnel and back again, but you won't be able to escape camera lock until after you've obtained Speed Booster.
¶ Using Camera Lock
After you obtain Speed Booster, there will be different ways to get back to Artaria depending on your route. Be warned, however, as you will have to navigate Artaria blindly, because the camera will be locked to a single room until you shinespark. If you mess up on your shinespark, or happen to perform a standing shinespark early, you can try your shinespark again by killing Pinky and sliding through the tunnel.
- Trigger Cam Lock
¶ In-depth explanation of how Camera Lock works
Camera Lock works because loading in "objects" is tied to where the game's camera is looking. If the camera is locked to a single room or area, then the rest of the objects in that map will be "unloaded," meaning they won't be there. When you "unlock" the camera, the game loads all the objects back into the level, because that is where the camera is.
Shinesparking with Speed Booster unlocks the camera because shinesparking can trigger cinematic events, which use the game's camera, namely, when you shinespark out of the EMMI zone after picking up Speed Booster the first time, or shinesparking at the bottom of the tall shaft during the Escape Sequence climb.
Reloading to checkpoint from Corpius resets the Melee Tutorial cutscene, but don't enter an EMMI zone in-between triggering the tutorial and reaching Corpius, as this causes the cutscene to disappear. This is why both the Elaine Skip and Early Corpius are required, so you can enter Corpius' arena after triggering the tutorial cutscene and reloading to checkpoint to restore the cutscene.
In non-Vanilla runs of the game, only killing Pinky (Muzby) before re-entering the Tutorial cutscene from the left is required, and will immediately engage Cam Lock.
Once Corpius is defeated, the Corpius boss checkpoint trigger will disappear, of course, and reloading to checkpoint inside Corpius' arena won't do anything. Technically, each boss has two checkpoints - an item save checkpoint, and a reload trigger checkpoint. Corpius' item save checkpoint was discovered to be located inside the morph ball tunnel that Samus reappears next to, while Corpius' arena itself has a trigger that allows you to reload outside the item save checkpoint. Merely passing through the item save checkpoint isn't enough: you must go into Corpius' boss arena to restore the Melee Tutorial Cutscene.
Although this distinction isn't really relevant for Camera Lock, manipulation of the two boss checkpoints can be seen in Save Power Transfer and may be related to Cutscene Deletion.