Best Metroidvania Games

Few genres are quite as evocative as Metroidvania. A simple mention pinpoints what type of game is on the cards; a 2D side-scrolling adventure with tight controls, interweaving and sophisticated level design ripe for exploration, and progression timed to discovering new abilities, items, or weapons.

Despite spawning from two series, Metroid and Castlevania, Metroidvania games exist in a diverse range of permutations, styles, and themes. To celebrate this captivating and diverse genre, we’ve pulled together a selection of the very best games produced to date. We’ve left out the original Metroid games and the Castlevania entries to avoid rehashing well-trodden territory.

With so many great Metroidvania games fueling the genre’s resurgence over the past decade, we’ll surely have missed some notable picks along the way, so don’t hesitate to drop into the comments section to let us know.

Ori and the Blind Forest / Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Both Ori and the Blind Forest and sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps deserve mention among the best Metroidvania games for offering spellbinding adventures in a breathtakingly beautiful Ghibli-esque hand-drawn-like world. Effortlessly engaging and full of heart, guiding Ori through tense platforming sections and battling all manner of gorgeously animated enemies is a joyous experience.

The Metroidvania elements come to the fore through a variety of combat and movement skill tree upgrades that grant access to previously out-of-bounds areas as well as through the limited Soul Links save system. Retracing your steps to half-explored areas armed with new skills is an absolute delight, and Ori does wonders to empower with a strong sense of progression as the game unfolds.

Arguably easier on the player than other highly praised Metroidvania titles, Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps still present a gratifying challenge. Still, the emphasis on a strong, often emotive, narrative is the undisputed highlight. Few other Metroidvania games even come close to hitting the same storytelling heights.

This all makes it an ideal entry point for Metroidvania novices; it eases you into the genre’s defining mechanics all while keeping you hooked, and even brought to the occasional tear, thanks to wonderful characters, top-shelf audio design, and stacks of atmosphere.

Dead Cells

Dead Cells is a roguelike that incorporates elements of Metroidvania, or to awkwardly mash up the two terms, a roguevania, so it doesn’t quite fit the bill quite as sleekly as other games in our list. Still, it’s such a strong game that it’s worth mentioning nevertheless.

Dead Cells adopts a run structure. As per the roguelike tradition, death punts you back to the beginning, but the game weaves in persistent upgrades and items that allow access to previously inaccessible areas, prompting the exploratory aspects of Dead Cells and ticking some Metroidvania boxes. There’s a strong sense of progression to the gameplay, and there’s no denying that things get easier as you gain in strength.

Combat is fast, fluid, and delightfully addictive, fuelling the desire to push for one run after another. Boss fights are diverse and satisfying, with an almost Souls-like aspect in the challenge presented to players. Add to that an ever-changing procedurally-generated world with branching paths, new weapons, a rich array of power-ups, and compelling enemies, and Dead Cells never feels stale.

You’ll die an awful lot, but Dead Cells’ charming pixel art style means the game always looks spectacular, and the drip-fed world-building guarantees some new story element to decrypt with every run.

Dust: An Elysian Tail

Often forgotten and sidelined by heavy hitters of the Metroidvania genre like Ori and Hollow Knight, Dust: An Elysian Tail is a gorgeous action platformer developed by one-person studio Humble Hearts and released back in 2012 that fully deserves a place on any best-of list.

It tells the story of warrior Dust as he contends with a bout of amnesia aided by a sentient sword and a magic-casting guardian called Fidget. A stunning hand-painted art style pulls together the experience and taps into a decidedly cheerier color palette than most Metroidvania games, transporting the player through various gorgeous biomes.

True to the genre, you stumble across power-ups that boost your skills, allowing you to reach previously inaccessible areas and a generous amount of secrets. Dust: An Elysian Tail also features a smattering of RPG elements such as a leveling system that allows the player to allocate points to defense, magic, health, and the like.

Combat is a joyous experience; easy to pick up, combining brawler-style sword slashing and magic casting, but with plenty of nuance for those that prefer deeper gameplay.

Axiom Verge

A love letter to the original Metroid games of the 8-bit and 16-bit era, Axiom Verge deftly captures the essence of the early Metroidvania genre and adds in a layer of modern gloss and polish for an experience that feels classic and modern in equal parts.

You play as scientist Trace, who awakes on an alien world of bleak tech, algorithmic entities, and grotesque, squirming lifeforms known as Sudra. Guided by a nameless voice, Trace finds himself gunning through ever-dangerous rooms to reactivate a piece of old tech.

Along the way, there are dozens of weapons, power-ups, upgrades, and skills to unlock, some behaving in curious ways from teleporting Trace and manipulating reality to launching a remote drone and even corrupting enemies.

Axiom Verge’s true intrigue comes to the fore as the structures and rules of the game seem to collapse around you, as glitches become pathways to progression and Trace learns to manipulate pixels to best enemies. Complementing this alien world’s disorienting but effective kinks and peculiarities is a narrative that toys with perception, blurring the line between reality and the fabrications of an unseen digital realm.

SteamWorld Dig 2

Continuing the Metroidvania genre’s obsession with subterranean exploration, SteamWorld Dig 2 is a charming little game about boring deep under a mining town in a mystery that pulls together devious machines, illicit distilleries, and a highly addictive concoction called moon juice.

Cast as Dorothy, a steam-powered robot, you’ll battle enemies, uncover precious loot, unlock abilities, and hoard weapons. With a digging as a core mechanic, the gameplay loop is a satisfying one: dig ever deeper with the occasional visit back to the surface to sell your wares, stock up, and upgrade your equipment and abilities, then repeat aiming ever deeper with every run. Doing so allows for a relatively varied selection of upgrades to fine-tune how Dorothy plays. Along the way, there are puzzles to solve, enemies to battle, secret areas to discover, and artifacts to collect.

SteamWorld Dig 2 is also a snappy experience that won’t ask too much of your time, ideal for those put off by sprawling Metroidvania games. In addition, the cheerful tone and reasonable difficulty level mean it never feels too taxing or demands players hone their skills through hours of repetitive gameplay. It also plays beautifully, thanks to tight controls.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a spiritual successor to the seminal Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and benefits from the guiding hand of Koji Igarashi, one of the minds behind the cult classic. As such, it’s very much like retreading familiar ground for fans and the unique atmosphere of the 90s Castlevania course through Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but elevated thanks to a successful layering of modern gloss and polish, not least an upgrade to 2.5D.

Propped up by a massively successful Kickstarter campaign that raised a staggering $5.5 million, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night pulls together an engaging mix of platforming, thrilling combat, and all the backtracking that defined the original.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is familiar, captivating, and oozes that unique gothic aesthetic. One for long-time fans and younger players wanting to explore a classic with modern quality of life improvements.

Guacamelee!

If you can push past the silly pun, Guacamelee! Is among the most enjoyable games to come out of the Metroidvania resurgence. Rather than a gun-toting or sword-wielding hero, Guacamelee! taps into the rich and colorful tradition and folklore of Mexican luchadores.

You’ll master devastating wrestling and grappling moves to best enemies through well-executed combos but also traverse the game’s array of platforming sections. This melding into one of combat and platforming is where Guacamelee! hits its stride to deliver a unique free-flowing experience. Every wrestling move is as useful in combat as in platforming challenges.

Besting some of the hardest sections in Guacamelee! can be tricky, but this difficulty is always counterbalanced by a massive dose of playfulness and measured humor. A strong narrative, an inviting color-rich art style, great characters, and on-point animation elevate the experience further.

Sequel Guacamelee! 2 is as captivating as the original, catapulting everything we loved to the next delightfully stylish and funny level. We highly recommend a play once you’ve got through the first entry in the series.

Yoku’s Island Express

The pairing of pinball and Metroidvania elements may not seem like the most appealing combination at first glance, but dismissing Yoku’s Island Express on that basis alone means missing out on one of the most unexpected, playful, and compelling entries the genre has produced.

Cast as the titular Yoku, an adorable dung beetle, you land on the island Mokumana to fill the recently vacated position of postmaster. You can’t jump, though, seriously complicating the task of weaving a path up towering trees, rocky mountains, caverns, and other testing platforming sections.

Conveniently, Yoku is delivering a perfectly spherical insect egg, which can be used to traverse the environment via all manner of pinball-style levers, paddles, rails, and flippers. The mechanic is cleverly implemented, allowing for plenty of control and precision over how the ball behaves. Before long, you’ll be besting complex platforming sections, grappling, diving, smashing, and flipping your way forward at breakneck speeds.

With no combat, Yoku’s Island Express stresses the exploratory aspects of the genre. Lovingly pieced together and designed, the game is one of the most upbeat and charming Metroidvania games out there. It offers a welcome reprieve from the often somber setting and atmosphere so synonymous with the genre. The loosely Ori and Studio Ghibli-inspired art style is always easy on the eyes.

Hollow Knight

To call Hollow Knight anything other than a masterpiece would be a disservice to this genuinely remarkable entry into the annals of Metroidvania history, but also broader video games. Developed by Australian outfit Team Cherry, it charts the story of an unassuming beetle-like bug’s dive into the deceptively expansive subterranean caverns and ruins of a forgotten kingdom beset by tragedy below a humble hamlet.

What opens up is a staggeringly beautiful and atmospheric hand-drawn world, soundtracked by an economical but ever evocative score and scattered with compelling NPCs. It plunders the Metroidvania coffers with gusto – benches acting as save points, fast travel, interconnected and intersecting pathways, abilities granting access to previous blocked off areas, ample secrets to unearth, and recouping precious gold-like Geo and health after death by fighting your specter – but rolls in its own unique character and limitless charm.

Combat is tight and responsive, presenting players with scores of playstyles and builds through the Charms collected along the way, and the platforming sections are delightfully tough but satisfying. Free of any oppressive hand-holding, Hollow Knight sheepishly reveals its story, prompting exploration and non-linear gameplay. Pace, story, and progress are all dictated by the player, with countless ways to get a complete picture of what happened long ago in the tunnels and galleries below.

Hollow Knight’s boss fights are thrilling and challenging in equal measure, each one with a delightful range of choreographed move sets that truly test the player’s mettle. Every fight is won through grit and pooling knowledge gained from previous attempts. But rather than difficulty slapped on for the sake of longevity, these encounters match the sensation of diving into a dormant civilization protected by eldritch arthropods, sucking you ever deeper into its many mysteries and harsh caverns.

Released in 2017, Hollow Knight benefits from its relative modernity – it plays well and offers a sleek, refined experience for those lacking enthusiasm for rough around the edges and graphically aged decades-old Metroidvanias.