One of the most hotly anticipated games of the year, if not the decade, hits digital storefronts on September 4th. What’s most remarkable about Hollow Knight: Silksong is that, unlike GTA 6 or Battlefield 6, it was made by a team of just three people.
Australian indie developer Team Cherry has been working on Silksong ever since its original Hollow Knight game became a word-of-mouth hit back in 2017.
This graphically lavish, deeply atmospheric 2D action-adventure game is the latest example of a sub-genre known as the Metroidvania – a contraction of the two signature game series that came to define a certain kind of ambitious platformer. Nintendo’s Metroid and Konami’s Castlevania kicked off within a year of one another in the mid-‘80s, and between them over the next decade set out a compelling formula.
There’s no universally agreed set of rules to qualify for Metroidvania status, but these games tend to involve a certain degree of free exploration, often through expansive 2D platformer worlds.
Your progress through these worlds is steered by the acquisition of new tools and abilities, which then enable your character to access new areas. There is often a detailed map to fill in and check in on along the way. Tense combat, while far from essential, often plays a central role, as do epic boss encounters.
The fact that there are so many Metroidvania games still being made to this day is a sign of the genre’s enduring appeal. We think these 10 examples are the best of the bunch, but we left another 10 equally worthy candidates on the cutting room floor.
10. Yoku’s Island Express
Yoku’s Island Express hits different to every other Metroidvania on this list. Yes, it’s a free-roaming 2D platformer of sorts, but the core mechanic takes as much inspiration from Metroid’s morph ball mechanic as its more traditional attributes. Your cute little beetle mail person can be propelled around this verdant world through flippers and bumpers ingeniously integrated into the level furniture. Specific dungeons and challenges resemble intricate pinball tables, waiting to have their secrets spilled by a well-timed flick or ping.
9. Guacamelee! 2
With a vivid and unique fantasy universe built around Mexican culture, and far more humour than most other Metroidvanias on this list (it can be a somewhat dour genre, we have to admit), Guacamelee! 2 is a real feelgood hit. Despite the levity, combat forms a key part of the game’s appeal, with a bold luchador theme that lends itself well to a hard-hitting (yet agile) combo-based system. There are some strong scrolling beat-‘em-up vibes accompanying the usual platforming and steady exploration.
8. Blasphemous 2
Fancy some religious-themed dread with your Metroidvania? Blasphemous 2 is sick stuff, and we mean that in the best possible way. With its densely packed world offering a fevered vision of hell in all but name, alongside weighty melee-based combat and boss encounters that are as punishing as they are inventive, Blasphemous 2 is as close as this list comes to a 2D take on Dark Souls. However, you still have a bunch of traditional Metroidvania virtues like nimble platforming and a steadily unfurling, ability-gated world to discover.
7. Dead Cells
Dead Cells often finds itself lumped in with the roguelike/roguelite crowd, thanks to its run-based nature and procedurally generated levels. But it deserves just as much to be counted amongst the brainy Metroidvania crowd, even if it’s one of the more unruly members. This gleefully kinetic 2D action-platformer throws an endless combination of melee, ranged, and automated weapons your way, and tasks you with using them to cut a swathe through increasingly formidable pixel-art enemies. Through all this action, you’ll find yourself exploring a mysterious fantasy world and unlocking key abilities to help you travel that little bit further.
6. Animal Well
The newest entry on this list is also the only Metroidvania here that doesn’t lean on combat in any significant way. Rather, Animal Well plays out like one big ingenious interlocking puzzle, as you and your cute blob-creature juggle an array of unorthodox tools and objects, and concoct new ways to put them to use. It’s all set in a magical yet unforgiving world that doesn’t hand out any easy answers or even clear sign posts, and that demands your full attention if you’re to emerge successful. A little lateral thinking wouldn’t go amiss, either.
5. SteamWorld Dig 2
The SteamWorld Dig games (this being the second of two) move with a more single-minded purpose than other Metroidvanias, forcing you ever deeper into the earth. That’s not to say that it’s at all predictable or restrictive, as your cute little robotic miner carves their way down into increasingly deadly (and correspondingly lucrative) areas. SteamWorld Dig 2’s more handcrafted biomes are an absolute pleasure to explore, as you constantly balance your urge to see what’s around the next corner with the imperative to get back up to the surface and spend your resources.
4. Ori and the Will of the Wisps
It might be five years old now, but Ori and the Will of the Wisps hasn’t aged a day. In fact, it’s one of the most downright gorgeous games on the market – a 2D platformer with more depth to its world than any number of lavish 3D RPGs. This sequel to 2015’s Ori and the Blind Forest sees you taking control of a humble forest spirit, who must negotiate a world that appears to have been grown rather than built. The storytelling is similarly organic, with the expressive wordless animation of its wonderful characters speaking a thousand words.
3. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
If you were to set out to carve a Mount Rushmore of Metroidvanias, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night would probably be either the first or second game you’d start chipping away at. This 1997 action-platformer, which launched initially on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn, is often seen as the apex of the series responsible for the latter half of the Metroidvania genre’s name. It’s notable for adding an engrossing amount of RPG depth and a liberating free-roaming structure to a franchise that had grown increasingly linear.
2. Super Metroid
As the other of the two foundational games on this list, Super Metroid pretty much has protected status on any Metroidvania list worth its salt. Thankfully, it more than earns its place some 30 years on from its SNES debut. It still plays gloriously, as you guide bounty hunter Samus Aran through a hostile alien planet, restoring her iconic power suit to full working order. The sense of isolation and of venturing into the unknown is nearly unmatched, and doubtless proved hugely influential to the tone and direction of Hollow Knight and its Silksong sequel.
1. Hollow Knight
There’s one reason and one reason alone why we’re so excited for Hollow Knight: Silksong, and that’s the enduring quality of the original. While its weighty movement and tactile combat proves instantly alluring, the true majesty of Hollow Knight unfurls slowly and steadily in countless minute details. It’s an audiovisual treat. The aim is to guide your sword-wielding bug hero through a dank underworld that appears to be suffocating under a sense of melancholy and decay. Which makes it sound like a total trudge, but for the charming and funny characters you’ll meet along the way. And, oh, what sights you’ll see.
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