Metroidvania fans like myself spent all of 2024 impatiently waiting for Hollow Knight: Silksong, but we didn’t really need to.
Take a step back, and you’ll see just how good of a year 2024 was for the Metroidvania genre even without that one game. From the AAA space with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown to the indie scene with games like Nine Sols, many fantastic games dropped in this well-trodden platforming subgenre this year. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you aren’t checking out other well-made Metroidvania tiles while you wait for Team Cherry to drop the game it has been teasing since 2019.
I do not doubt that Team Cherry’s long-awaited sequel will be a monumental release, but we shouldn’t use that as an excuse to ignore how the genre evolved over the course of the year. It’s misguided to place all your opinions on whether a year was good for games on a single title. The video game industry is much too diverse and flush with options for that — and 2024 proved it.
The many Metroidvanias of 2024
The original Hollow Knight is considered one of the best Metroidvanias of all time. It sported gorgeous visuals, had a lot of intriguing lore to dig into, gave players a massive and secret-filled world to explore, and featured silky-smooth platforming. No matter which of those things about Hollow Knight you liked the most, some new Metroidvania game this year appealed to that sensibility.
Want to play a game with gorgeous art? Look at the stunning animation of Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus or the detailed pixel art of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder. Are narrative and action the most important elements of a Metroidvania for you? Then Nine Sols’ Taopunk world and deflection-driven combat create the Sekiro to Hollow Knight’s Dark Souls. And no Metroidvania this year captured the feeling of curiosity during exploration as expertly as Animal Well did.
Even those who prefer retro games were satiated this year with the Castlevania Dominus Collection. There are several other competent Metroidvanias that I could mention, like Biomorph, The Devil Within: Satgat, AWAKEN — Astral Blade, Yars Rising, or Pinball Spire. A quick look at the genre’s new and trending Steam page will show how many Metroidvania games are coming out every month. Hollow Knight: Silksong might not be out right now, but this genre is as lively as ever.
Coming for Hollow Knight’s crown
Of all the Metroidvania games that came out this year, one matches — and, in some areas, surpasses — Hollow Knight. That game is Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Released in January, this game brought the series back to its 2D roots while innovating in the Metroidvania space. The Lost Crown is a meaty adventure that takes upward of 20 hours to beat, and not a moment of that feels like fluff.
Combat is fast and snappy, sometimes feeling like a 2D version of Devil May Cry or Stellar Blade. Platforming is fluid, and Ubisoft wasn’t afraid to create some truly devious challenges that wouldn’t have felt out of place in a game like Celeste. Both benefit from the Metroidvania formula as their complexities deepen as players acquire more abilities. On top of all that, it’s also incredibly approachable.
There are tons of difficulty and accessibility modifiers, and a Memory Shard system allows players to take screenshots of important locations and pin them to a map so they don’t forget where to go next. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown gives Hollow Knight a run for its money as the best recommendation for someone’s first Metroidvania. The base game and its DLC provided some of the most fun I’ve had in video games this year, and I can’t imagine not having played it because I just wanted to wait for Silksong.
It’s always a good year for games
There’s a takeaway in all of this. Whenever a highly anticipated product takes a long time to come out, the noise surrounding the hype for it becomes deafening. Right now, Hollow Knight: Silksong is right up there with Nintendo Switch 2 and Grand Theft Auto 6 as the biggest culprits of this in the gaming space. Of all those titles, the hype for Silksong can be the most damaging because it takes away attention from other indie games and other standout Metroidvanias.
Check the chat of every gaming showcase for the past couple of years and you’ll find at least a few people spamming it with pleas for Silksong. Those fans can sometimes tune out announcements from indie-focused presentations like the Triple-I Initiative Showcase because Silksong didn’t appear. Games like The Lost Crown seemingly underperform and don’t get sequels, while some Metroidvania fans act like Silksong is the only upcoming game in the space that matters.
None of that is Team Cherry’s fault; the studio should take as long as it needs to craft an unforgettable experience. It’s also OK to be excited about Silksong. I’ve just found myself disappointed in people saying 2024 has been a weak year for games because it didn’t have as many high-profile game launches as 2023 did or 2025 will. The situation with Silksong and the Metroidvania genre in 2024 is a microcosm of that.
The next time you’re about to beg for Hollow Knight: Silksong in a showcase chat, maybe head over to Steam and see if there’s a new Metroidvania title that you’re interested in playing there.
