SHYPIARD
GENRE · Metroidvania

What is a metroidvania?

A metroidvania is a side-view action game set on one large connected map. New abilities open paths that were blocked before, so the player keeps returning to known places with new moves. Hollow Knight, Blasphemous and ENDER LILIES are metroidvanias.

The map is what the player keeps. Hollow Knight and Blasphemous draw it by hand. Dead Cells generates it and still belongs, because its biomes behave like regions to learn.

Best metroidvania games

Steam artwork — Dead Cells

Dead Cells

Dead Cells is a roguevania: a procedural castle, permadeath runs, and a meta that slowly opens the map.

Open →
Steam artwork — Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is the reference 2D map for a generation of Steam metroidvanias: sparse dialogue, dense rooms, brutal bosses.

Open →
Steam artwork — ANIMAL WELL

ANIMAL WELL

ANIMAL WELL is a mute pixel metroidvania where the map is a riddle you keep, and combat is almost a rumor you stop expecting. A pixel that moved is the loot.

Open →
Steam artwork — ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights

ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights

ENDER LILIES is a grim 2D metroidvania: you send a chorus of bound knights through a ruin, then you walk the map you already paid for.

Open →
Steam artwork — Blasphemous

Blasphemous

Blasphemous is a grim, religious-horror metroidvania with deliberate combat.

Open →
Steam artwork — Blasphemous 2

Blasphemous 2

Blasphemous 2 is a grim metroidvania: you parry through a religious ruin on a map that stays where you left it. A tell becomes a spark when the parry lands, and the ruin is still there the next time you walk it.

Open →
Steam artwork — Minit

Minit

Minit kills you every sixty seconds. The items you picked up stay, so the whole game is a routing problem: what can you reach, use and bank before the timer runs out again.

Open →
Steam artwork — Rain World

Rain World

Rain World is an ecosystem you do not top: hibernate before the rain, or the world eats you. Creatures have errands. You are food that learned to jump.

Open →
Players

Do I want to keep the map or reroll the castle?

Games like…

Related rankings

Related subgenres

Related teardowns