Lots of great metroidvania games combine exploration, unlocking new paths with abilities, and interesting worlds. This list showcases a variety of those games, highlighting different gameplay styles and features. You’ll find games focused on precise platforming, intense combat, and even unique ideas like pinball, digging, or fast-paced speedrunning. All of these games feature maps that expand as you gain new skills and abilities. Think of this as a guide to help you find your next favorite game to explore and become an expert in.
Hollow Knight
This expansive game takes place in a beautifully hand-drawn world, full of connected areas that are best discovered through thorough exploration. You’ll unlock new abilities, like the Mothwing Cloak and Crystal Heart, which allow you to reach previously inaccessible areas and uncover hidden secrets. Battles involve precise nail attacks, powerful spells, and customizable charm combinations to create unique playstyles. The game saves progress at benches and uses a currency system where careful risk-taking is key to success.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
This game emphasizes quick movement using abilities like Bash, Grapple, and Kuro’s Feather, allowing you to chain actions together seamlessly. The world is divided into different areas, each containing keystones, spirit trials, and optional combat challenges. You’ll improve your character by collecting spirit shards, which can be used to customize damage, defense, and other helpful abilities. The game also features a forgiving checkpoint system and warp points to make getting around and revisiting areas easy.
Metroid Dread
In the game, Samus ventures across the planet ZDR, gaining abilities like the Speed Booster, Screw Attack, and Storm Missiles. These upgrades open up new paths and reveal hidden areas, often marked by color-coded doors. The planet is connected by elevators and trams designed with looping pathways, encouraging players to revisit locations. Dangerous EMMI robots patrol certain zones, requiring stealth and careful planning until Samus obtains the Omega Blaster to defeat them. Throughout the exploration, Samus finds power suit enhancements and energy tanks to become more resilient while meticulously charting the entire map.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
As you progress through the castle, you’ll unlock abilities and items – like transforming into a bat, becoming mist, or using a leap stone – that change how you move around. You can also customize your gear and choose from many different weapons to fight in your preferred style. Once you’ve explored the castle once, a mirrored version opens up with new areas to discover. Paying close attention to detail and exploring every nook and cranny – including hidden rooms and walls you can break – is highly rewarding.
Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
Shards give you both active and passive abilities, affecting how you move and fight. You can create new gear through crafting and alchemy, and take on side quests and customize your character with portraits. The castle map features teleport rooms to quickly travel between important locations. Defeating bosses unlocks abilities that let you access shortcuts and explore extra areas.
Blasphemous
In this dark fantasy game, you customize your character using special upgrades called Mea Culpa and rosary beads. You’ll restore health and manage risks with Prie Dieu checkpoints and bile flasks as you explore interconnected levels. The game features elevators and winding corridors, with optional hidden areas and a unique guilt system. Skillful platforming and discovering secret rooms will reward you with items that make you stronger and help you survive.
Blasphemous 2
Getting around is more dynamic now with new moves like double jumps, air dashes, and special abilities tied to each weapon. You’ll also find three unique weapons that change how you attack and interact with the world. As you collect items, you can improve your health, energy, and how many healing potions you can carry. Plus, the game lets you explore in a non-linear way, letting you choose which bosses to fight and how to progress through the story.
Axiom Verge
The game features creative ways to overcome obstacles, using items like guns and specialized tools that manipulate the environment. Glitches are intentionally built into the game, revealing secret areas and changing how enemies behave. Players can find permanent upgrades for health and weapons by thoroughly exploring the world. Discovering lore terminals and optional areas adds depth to the story, but exploration remains the central focus.
Axiom Verge 2
The game features two interconnected worlds with unique environments and challenges. Players can switch between a physical world and a digital one, each with its own rules. You’ll play as a drone, using stealth and hacking skills to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, rather than just relying on fighting. You’re free to explore most areas in any order you choose, and finding hidden collectibles will boost your abilities and unlock new upgrades in both worlds.
Dead Cells
The game features interconnected areas, or biomes, that branch out, creating varied experiences with each playthrough. Players move quickly using abilities like double jumps, rolls, and a mechanic that lets them regain control after being knocked back. You’ll find blueprints to craft gear, which are added to a shared collection, and collect cells to permanently unlock upgrades. To add strategic depth, there are timed doors and optional challenge rooms that offer extra rewards.
Guacamelee
The game features a unique dimension-shifting ability, letting you switch between worlds to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies. Powerful, wrestling-inspired moves aren’t just for combat – they can also destroy certain blocks. Throughout the world, statues grant special movement abilities, such as transforming into a chicken or gaining a powerful boost. You can also find hidden temples and complete side quests to earn extra health and unlock new costumes.
Guacamelee 2
The game builds on the original with more ways to manipulate dimensions and introduces new powers for the chicken, letting players move around in fresh ways. It also features cooperative play where players can tackle tricky platforming sections together. Like the first game, it’s a Metroidvania with color-coded obstacles and upgrades found through statues. Players can also find optional challenge rooms and time trials for extra replay value.
The Messenger
The game starts as a classic side-scrolling adventure, but quickly evolves into something more expansive, with elements similar to ‘metroidvania’ games. You’ll travel through time, and levels will change between the visual styles of 8-bit and 16-bit games, opening up new paths and hidden areas. You’ll move around using abilities like cloudstepping and a rope dart, allowing for fluid and connected platforming. As you explore, you can find items that increase your health, the number of shurikens you can carry, and grant you helpful passive abilities.
SteamWorld Dig 2
Players dig down into a custom-built mine filled with connected areas and hidden caves. They can improve their tools – like their pickaxe, drilling system, and ways to get around with items such as a hookshot and jetpack – using gems they find. Discovering ancient artifacts unlocks lasting benefits. To help with longer play sessions, players can use fast travel tubes and buy items from vendors on the surface.
Yoku’s Island Express
Instead of jumping, you move around a connected island using pinball flippers and bumpers. New abilities, like a vacuum that sucks up slugs and swimming upgrades, help you find different paths. You’ll explore the map by completing tasks for villagers and delivering items. Finding collectibles lets you carry more and unlock faster ways to get around.
Ender Lilies Quietus of the Knights
Defeating bosses and powerful enemies unlocks versatile abilities that help you fight and explore. The game map hides new areas behind breakable objects, hidden waterways, and collectible items. Returning to safe havens resets enemies and lets you customize your gear. Finding story pieces and achieving different outcomes rewards players who explore every corner of the game.
Grime
Okay, so in this game, when enemies hit me, it actually helps! Instead of just taking damage, I absorb their attacks and turn them into points to unlock cool new abilities. Getting around is pretty interesting too – the world is all connected by these tunnels and elevators, and I have to solve environmental puzzles to progress. And the weapons? They’re not just static – I can actually evolve them, changing up how they fight and how powerful they get. Finally, there are these ‘nerve conduits’ everywhere, which are basically checkpoints, but they also let me fast travel all over the place, which is a huge time saver!
F.I.S.T. Forged In Shadow Torch
This dieselpunk city is connected by subways and hidden passages. You can use weapons like fists, drills, and whips not only to fight, but also to break through obstacles and reach new areas. By collecting chips and unlocking skills, you’ll create powerful combos and gain useful abilities. Plus, optional dungeons and challenge rooms offer extra materials for upgrades and rare collectibles.
Gato Roboto
This map is small and designed for quick movement using your suit’s abilities, including swimming and climbing. Power-ups like missiles and a quick dash allow you to access hidden shortcuts and tight spaces. Frequent save points and straightforward goals keep the action moving quickly. Finding all the secrets and collectibles earns you extra health and powerful upgrades.
Dandara
Instead of typical jumps, movement relies on quickly leaping between surfaces, which impacts how levels are designed. Getting around now includes directional arrows and requires players to carefully manage their energy. The levels themselves are filled with warps, secret areas, and places to upgrade your abilities. The game gets harder not by reducing your health or ammo, but by offering opportunities to permanently increase them.
Timespinner
Battles center around powerful orb weapons that can be customized with different parts and used at various distances. You can also briefly stop time to solve puzzles and safely navigate dangerous areas. Portals connect different timelines, changing the environment and opening up new paths. Plus, crafting and collecting companions lets you enhance your abilities with lasting upgrades that apply throughout the entire game world.
Sundered
You can customize your abilities with a skill tree, choosing between reliable improvements or riskier, more powerful ones. The game world changes its layout, and enemies appear in waves based on what’s happening in each area. Collect shards and perks to become more mobile and improve your fighting skills. Defeating bosses lets you obtain special shards that grant game-changing powers, allowing you to access previously blocked areas.
Iconoclasts
The game focuses on solving puzzles and exploring the world using a wrench to tighten bolts and a blaster to activate switches. You’ll move between towns, caves, and facilities, often revisiting areas with new abilities you unlock. You can improve your character’s health and energy, and the map includes teleports to help you quickly travel between main locations.
Afterimage
The game features beautifully hand-painted environments that create a vast and diverse world with different landscapes. Players can customize their characters with a variety of weapons and skills, improving them by collecting materials throughout the game. Movement is fluid and dynamic, with options like double jumping, air dashes, and unique movement abilities. For those seeking a challenge, optional bosses and secret areas offer powerful rewards and deeper insights into the game’s story.
Prince of Persia The Lost Crown
This game features challenging platforming where you can manipulate time to solve puzzles – you can set markers and instantly return to them. As you gain new abilities like double jumping and air dashing, you’ll be able to reach previously inaccessible areas. You can also customize your character with amulets and weapon upgrades to improve combat and defense. Getting around the world is easy thanks to fast travel options like Wak Wak trees and portals.
Let us know your favorite Metroidvania game in the comments, and tell us which one we should consider adding to our list!
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2025-11-15 04:18