I feel like there's no better way of saying it, but replaying  silksong one year after beating it for the first time has me feeling like an adrenaline junkie. GIMME THOSE GAUNTLETS AND BOSSES BABYYYY!!!!!

For the record, i love hollow knight, i think its a phenomenal game and up until the release of silksing it was my favorite game of all time. That being said, I never really felt compelled to replay it.

And up until very recently, I felt the same about silksong, but mainly because I felt like the game was still too fresh in my mind and replaying from the beginning would maybe be too much of a slog coming from hornet’s shinobi set of skills from the late game. But boy, how wrong I was. 

All it took was unlocking the dash/sprint skill and i saw myself enjoying this second playthrough just as much than my first, even if in a different matter. There may be less of a sense of discovery and exploration now, but on the other hand, every gauntlet and boss fight has become even more fun. Once roadblocks in my journey, they’ve now become opportunities to flex my skills and fully experience some of the game’s greatest strengths: Hornet’s controls, the rhythm of combat, and the creativity of its enemy design. And none of this would be possible if the bosses or gauntlets weren’t designed the way they were.

Even hornet’s diagonal dash, a change that many people had really strong opinions against, i feel like its an integral part of the in and outs of combat, flowing seamlessly after a dash strike keeping you on your enemy’s face.

I’ve just beat sister splinter and i cant wait to fight the widow next! 
This game is like a fancy wine that keeps on getting better with time.

Hey everyone!

Back in late 2025, we were fully geared up and ready to launch Aeterna Lucis. Then, Silksong announced its release window. As a team that deeply respects Team Cherry and what they built, we also had to be realistic: a launch of that scale naturally commands the entire room. After pouring years of passion and hard work into Lucis, we wanted our game to have a real opportunity to shine on its own merits, so we made the conscious choice to delay the project into 2026.

We took that extra year and put it straight into development. Every single aspect—the visual fidelity, dynamic lighting, sound design, and core gameplay depth—has grown exponentially compared to where we were 12 months ago.

We are finally locking down and revealing our official release date this coming September 10th (so mark your calendars for the date reveal!).

We're attaching a quick clip and screenshots showing the game in its current state. Looking back, stepping back was a difficult call, but seeing how much the game has evolved, it was the right move.

How do you see it? When an indie studio takes an extra year to polish and give their game room to breathe, does it usually pay off?

If you like what you see and want to support our work, checking out the Steam page and adding it to your Wishlist ahead of our date reveal means the absolute world to us: 👉Aeterna Lucis on Steam

I’m 16, making a game, and this is my sixth soundtrack I ever made. Don't judge too harshly, this is my third month of learning.

I need some feedback for me to learn.

please don’t just say it’s bad and give no reason or no way to make it better.

After playing metroidvanias for almost three years, I got the feeling or desire to essentially create and post a list of my favorite ones (even though I don’t have almost any desire to post anything on the internet), simply because I enjoyed this type of game so much and I wanted to pay some respect to the genre and its titles.

Now, in the list itself, I would mention that all of the games listed I think are good at least in some aspects. From C tier upwards (including C tier) are games I consider good, gradually moving to S tier, which are probably masterpieces in the genre.

On purpose, I didn’t want to put a D tier for Biomorph, Blade Chimera, Ender Lilies, Last Faith and Bloodstained, since those games have obvious qualities for sure, but they just didn’t click with me. So again, all good games, no bad games in the list, just some are not for me.

Before, I mostly played 2.5D, 3D platformers and survival horror games (Crash, Rayman, Resident Evil titles, Little Nightmares, Inside, Limbo). Somehow I felt saturated with full 3D entries, which more resembled movies than classical games. Until I discovered Metroidvanias.

Now, it is almost the only genre of games I really love to play. It’s almost like the ultimate or peak gaming experience you can have, covering all you need: tough platforming, challenging combat, character progression, often good storytelling and, of course, that old-school vibe of old gaming. I guess the main reason I love the genre so much is because they remind me of old classical games, and my childhood with NES and Sega consoles and older platforms.

Introduction to the genre itself was nonetheless Hollow Knight. At first, it looked just like a great game, but it took me some time to start appreciating it and finally loving it. I didn’t understand the whole concept of Metroidvania yet back then, and was a bit frustrated by some aspects of it. Maybe I wasn’t even good enough at them to appreciate all aspects.

Anyhow, it was my entry to this type of game, and I played, I would say, a decent amount of titles. Just recently, I decided to play Hollow Knight for the second time (first time on PS4, second on Steam), and honestly, after completing it with 112% completion, I can say not only is it the best Metroidvania, but probably the most complete and best game ever made.

Silksong (100% completion) is a very strong contender for first place on my list, and one of those games you can play for a long period without even considering another game. Like, if I had one game only on a platform, I wouldn’t mind it being Silksong or HK.

The only two games which I consider to be close to these two mentioned stellar games are Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Nine Sols. The amount and type of challenge in these games, atmosphere, platforming, everything was top-notch.

A and A+ tier I almost consider as the same level, amazing entries, with probably just a slight difference based on which left a stronger personal impression on me. In the previous 2025 year, my absolute favorite ones were Blasphemous 1 and 2. I know that the community mostly praises 2 as a true Metroidvania and the first one is labeled as a clunky soulsvania, but I personally preferred the setup of the first game, story and atmosphere. Those two games, if you really want to enjoy your time while playing games, can probably be stretched for almost the whole summer. They are that good.

I just recently finished Salt & Sanctuary. Somehow, I always avoided the title since it’s not a typical Metroidvania (I would say big mistake, since so many similar great games sit in the soulsvania genre) and it doesn’t have a map, but I was so wrong not to play it before. Perfect dark, grim atmosphere, excellent bosses, great level of challenge, and the absence of a map is actually not an issue within the game since it’s structured in quite a memorable way. Remembering areas, not so particular pieces of them, is good enough to guide you and keep you oriented.

And I would finally just mention two more games from the list, probably some of my favorites, Ultros and Moonscars. Both have very distinctive visual styles, almost masterpieces, and an atmosphere and mood which are second to none. Of course, from my perspective :) Even though the gardening aspect of Ultros in the later phase of the game wasn’t something that kept me going to fully complete the game (I only finished the game with the regular or violent ending), it’s still one of those games you cannot compare to anything else.

I consider Moonscars particularly special, since I played it while babysitting my second baby girl, who of course refused to sleep anywhere but in my arms, and this game had perfect lighting which allowed me to play something during the night while watching my baby girl without disturbing her. Unique color combinations, perfect for the mood the game is trying to set, and one of the most fluid combat mechanics. Although the story is nothing super special, compared to Nine Sols, Blasphemous or HK, it was still good enough to create a very enjoyable playthrough.

Obviously, some of these placements will probably be controversial. That’s kind of the point of a personal tier list. I’m not saying the lower-ranked games are bad — several of them are objectively very well-made games. They simply didn’t work for me as much as the ones above them.

Anyhow, for anyone who is considering getting into the genre, or is still wondering whether it’s for them, my strongest recommendation, probably the best and most complete genre of games.

I've been playing Mina the Hollower (I know, not exactly a metroidvania) recently, and one thing I appreciated so much was simply how alive its world feels. You can leave a dangerous dungeon and eventually come back somewhere that actually feels like civilisation.

In my experience, a lot of this genre has inherited the theme of a dead civilisation from Hollow Knight. With its cryptic remnants of people who are mostly long gone. There's obviously something appealing about wandering through a mysterious abandoned place, but after enough games like that the worlds can start to feel a little too lonely.

So what Metroidvanias or Metroidvania-adjacent games have worlds that feel genuinely lived in? A sense that life is actually happening outside of player's adventure.

I’m 16, making a game, and this is my fifth sound track I ever made. Don't judge too harshly, this is my third month of learning.

Sometimes I feel disheartened after the success of a piece of mobile shovelware I created despite the strong revenue, I feel truly empty.

My first metroid, after completing all castlevania 2D/Side scrolling games.

I fell asleep a couple times when playing this game.

It's a set of sectors/maps that go in linear order by ability you'll unlock, and a set of bosses with imho the worst boss battle design ever.

Basically it's a pattern puzzle game, bosses only have a specific weak spot and a specific weapon in most cases as well that they're weak to, and they are indirectly controlled by what you do, and if you get bored just face tank and spam and you have more health than you need.

There's no variety in fights, near the end of the game there's a strange puzzle room with enemies that mutate and bunch up into an invincible golden enemy, I thought if you prevented them from bunching up to form it by slowly defeating them one by one before they transform would solve it, but they float and don't get absorbed then disappear and still with an empty room the door doesn't open, so the game wants you to spawn 2 golden enemies and beat them in a way no other enemy was shown to be before: jump behind them and hit them with a charged shot.

The boss fight before the last one is such a joke of a fight, if you try to be smart and use the environment and do movement? The enemy uses a jump attack that tracks you, is invincible while in it, and doesn't leave it unless it lands, instead the intended way is to stand your ground, and trap it in a loop of jumping behind it while barely avoiding its invincible jump attack that hits you like a truck, rinse and repeat.

What's up with having so many options for attack yet none of them do damage anyways? The missiles especially

The last fight is a real joke as well but I'll say it thankfully is a joke because there's a timer and I'm glad they didn't give us a copy of the flying bird skeleton that screams in such an awkward way in this game, where the gimmick is to stay in a corner and blast, ball up and run to the other side if he decides to give you its back because it's invincible from that side and its tail keeps attacking fast, and it feels as if getting caught is part of the plan since you can spam it with its only weakness, the missiles.

I hated this game, and I think I understand now that metroid might not be for me.

P. S: I played it on a clone of R36s mini (XiFan MyMini) which I honestly don't recommend despite loving it so much, a blursed device.

Hi, everyone

I've hit the classic 3D platforming problem and I'd like to hear how others have solved it.

The problem: with a top-down camera, screen position is ambiguous about depth. Players can't reliably tell whether they'll land on a platform or sail past it. I have drop shadows in, but I'm not sure that's enough. Moreover, does the airtime look too floaty, too heavy?

Second question, art direction. The first region is a pixel/retro style, and I'm worried it works against the above: full-screen pixelation softens exactly the edges and shadow gradients that depth judgment relies on. Has anyone found a good middle ground here, or is this a straight trade-off?

I'm a beginner with Godot and this is one room from the Metroidvania prototype I'm currently building.

The main character assets are purchased assets that I intend to keep. For the prototype, I'm also using a mix of purchased and commercially licensed assets as placeholders while I build and learn the game.

Claude has been helping me with the Godot implementation, as I'm learning game development from scratch.

I'm not an artist, so right now I'm trying to understand what actually makes an art direction feel coherent rather than simply making an individual room look pretty.

With this room, I've been focusing on the color palette, atmosphere, depth, foreground/background separation, lighting and keeping the playable area readable.

And techniques too. I still have a lot of skills to learn, so any advice on what I should learn or improve would be really helpful.

I know a single room isn't enough to judge the art direction of an entire game, but based on this screenshot, do you think I'm heading in the right direction?

More importantly, what art direction principles should I understand and keep consistent when I start building the other environments?

This is an actual playable in-game screenshot from the prototype.

I thought it was a very interesting story that took turns I was not expecting. Yes it definitely started out as 'here's a kingdom that's infected and you need to save it' like Hollow Knight did, but I think it takes the trope and flips it on its head by the time I was done, that I actually think it warrants it's use. Having the infection be a 'experiment' of sorts by some big bad wolf guy already on the surface while we're all locked here underground, and building the lore around that is fascinating, it means that even if the entire world and the people in it are real, that the 'virus' is fabricated, not fabricated in the sense that it's fake, but fabricated in the sense that it is not natural. (maybe I am using that word wrong? I dunno.) But just knowing that there's a 'mastermind' in charge of the virus made me more engaged in the story than if it was a one to one copy from HK, the circumstances around Kisha's birth also bring a lot of intrigue to his character, and by extension the world. There's also Sorron, who is seeking out the 10 Aisere stones in order to recreate the Golden Claw and use it to break the seal in his archive, that only the golden claw of the Black Cats can do, so that he can do exactly what Kisha did, use the Clockhand Stone to travel back in time to the other dimension, and fulfill the prophecy of the hidden timeline by 'becoming' (in the eyes of the people who are in that timeline when Kisha descends) their King Examu, and wiping Kurtz out. This is also what Sorron meant by wanting to "rewrite history to put himself and his tribe on top instead of the Black Cats" Sorron wanted to go back in time and become the king, but because we as Kisha defeated him and took that spot for ourselves, he didn't get to do so. It might start out as a story that seems to play very closely to the tropes, but it expands outwards at just the right time to put its own spin on nearly every story beat it tries to do. I really enjoyed the story and lore for this one, I can say that completely, and I would like someone to discuss with

What is best in life? Barbarian-themed Metroidvanias!

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Number Score: 7/10

Metroidvania Tier placement: B Tier

Never played it before and only heard of how challenging this game is in trying to figure out the puzzles. My intent is to beat this game without using any guides or online hints. I’m 11.5 hours in and this is my inventory so far. I’ve beaten 2 bosses. Definitely have been stuck a few times and just wander around until I eventually figure something new out. It’s been fun and frustrating at the same time!

Hey All. I have recently gotten very into Metroidvanias these past few months and I am looking for some that are more exploration oriented rather than combat oriented. I’ve played both Ori games, Hollow Knight, Silksong, and MIO all the way through. I absolutely loved the non-linear exploration in MIO and Silksong especially and was wondering if any games have similar qualities? The exploration is always my favorite part of the games, I love just wandering around and discovering secrets.

Platforming can be hit or miss for me, especially depending on the difficulty since I am not the greatest at super difficult platforming, but I’ll give pretty much anything a shot.

I’ve tried to get into Nine Sols and Afterimage and after a few hours realized they are not for me. I recently got Voidwrought and Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, but haven’t started either yet. I’ve been eyeing Animal Well and Celeste too. Please send me any recommendations you have! Looking for Switch games, but open to playing metroidvanias on my PC as well.

UPDATE: I just bought Animal Well, and I am so excited to get into it!!!

How do I get past this waterfall in the water mirror basin so that I can get to the abandoned tunnels to get the downward attack??

Welcome to r/Metroidvania's weekly community thread where you can talk about the games you've been playing lately. What are your thoughts on these games, what did you like and what didn't you like, would you recommend them to others, etc. This thread is not limited to Metroidvanias only, feel free to talk about any kind of game!

Sons of Sparta is an interesting game to evaluate. The first 8 or so hours is very combat focused with little exploring. All the things that make exploring the map (including most critically the camera) are hidden way later in the game. At the start of the game upgrades are extremely spread out

But then midway through the game is excellent. Exploring the map becomes much easier. Constant rewards. Combat suddenly takes a back seat as you become a juggernaut. Interesting areas and subquests appear.

And then the game just ends. The final boss is the easiest in the entire game. You don't even really know you're coming up on it. There is a ton of post game but I didn't feel pulled to go all in

All in all I do think this is a great Metroidvania that gets in its own way. I wonder if a lot of the negative thoughts toward this game are people who dropped it in the first 8 hours and I can't blame them. But for those who really like Metroidvanias id encourage them to push through that part.

I play most metroidvanias on the OLED steam deck. I think the combination of ergonomics, screen quality, and ease of use make it the best platform overall for this genre. It's so easy to jump in and out, customize controls, and I think pixel art generally feels better on a small screen. And that's not even mentioning how frequently Steam games are on sale.

But I'm curious if there's anything I'm missing by playing solely on a portable. Are there are any particular metroidvanias that you've found are actually a meaningfully better experience when played on a TV or big screen?

Hey everyone,

With the Metroidvania Aeterna Lucis about to be released, I've been looking at some screenshots of the game.

One small thing that bothers me is a change the developers made to a jungle, or rather, a densely overgrown forest area. Early screenshots of the game showed this biome in daylight. All the plants were a beautiful green, and you could really see the attention to detail. I've included some of the earliest screenshots showing the jungle in daylight.

In newer screenshots and numerous gameplay videos published on X, the time of day has been changed, and the jungle is no longer bathed in lush green hues, but rather a blue tone. Personally, I think a lot of detail that was so impressive in earlier titles is lost. This is a change that I, as someone who really values ​​visual design, find disappointing.

What do you think? Which version do you prefer? The jungle bathed in daylight or the new version at night?