Best Metroidvania Games on PC

The metroidvania genre has become one of PC gaming’s most crowded spaces, with dozens of new entries arriving each year. The best of them share a quality that goes deeper than ability-gated maps and interconnected worlds. They create places you want to inhabit, systems you want to master, and mysteries you want to unravel on your own terms.

These eight games represent the strongest metroidvanias available on PC. They range from a sprawling underground insect kingdom to a parry-driven combat gauntlet rooted in Chinese mythology, spanning a decade of releases from 2014 through 2024. Each one found its own answer to the genre’s defining question: what makes exploration, backtracking, and gradual empowerment feel rewarding rather than tedious?

Kingdoms Built for Getting Lost

Two games on this list turn exploration itself into the primary reward, hiding their best content behind layers of discovery that keep surprising players dozens of hours in.

Hollow Knight from Team Cherry is the highest-rated game on this list at 4.7 stars, and the scope of what a three-person Australian studio built here remains difficult to overstate. Hallownest is massive, with interconnected zones that each carry a distinct visual identity and atmosphere. The hand-drawn art and Christopher Larkin’s soundtrack work together to create something players consistently describe as haunting, melancholy, and beautiful in equal measure. Combat is precise, with over 30 major boss encounters that demand pattern recognition and careful execution. A charm system allows deep customization of the Knight’s moveset, giving players meaningful choices about how to approach the game’s toughest challenges. Four free content expansions pushed an already enormous game into something that borders on absurd for its price point. Navigation can frustrate, particularly the map system that requires finding a cartographer in each area before you have any sense of the layout. Early hours offer little guidance about where to go, and the Godmaster expansion pushed difficulty to extremes that even dedicated fans consider punishing. But for players who click with the hands-off philosophy, Hallownest rewards every hour poured into it.

Tunic by Isometricorp Games, rated 4.3 stars, takes a different approach to discovery. On the surface, it looks like a charming isometric adventure about a small fox. Underneath that surface, it hides one of the most layered exploration experiences in the genre. The game’s masterstroke is an in-game instruction manual scattered across the world in pages written in an untranslatable language. Collecting and studying these pages becomes its own puzzle, one that sits on top of the exploration and combat. Hidden paths are everywhere, tucked behind walls the isometric camera obscures and inside interactions the game never tells you are possible. The community that formed around deciphering Tunic’s constructed language became part of the experience itself. Combat is the most polarizing element, with a stamina system and sharp difficulty scaling in the back half that frustrates players who came for the puzzles. Accessibility options allow players to reduce combat difficulty without penalty, a smart inclusion that lets the discovery layers shine. Andrew Shouldice spent seven years building this game, and every hidden corner reflects that dedication.

Where Movement Becomes the Whole Point

Moon Studios built two of the most fluid platformers in the genre, both centered on a small spirit navigating gorgeous, dangerous worlds.

Ori and the Blind Forest, released in 2015 and rated 4.5 stars, communicates almost entirely through visuals, animation, and Gareth Coker’s orchestral score. Ori controls with the kind of precision that makes difficult platforming feel fair, and abilities chain together fluidly as new traversal tools unlock across the runtime. Hand-painted backgrounds layer depth into every screen, and the Definitive Edition added a dash ability, new areas, fast travel, and difficulty options that rounded out the original package. Story conveys loss, hope, and sacrifice through animation and music rather than exposition, with an opening sequence that players consistently cite as one of the most affecting moments in gaming. Escape sequences that cap major areas with high-speed platforming gauntlets are divisive, thrilling for some and punishing for others. Combat is the weakest element, relying on a simple auto-targeting system that rarely engages as deeply as the traversal challenges around it. But the platforming and atmosphere make it essential for anyone drawn to the genre.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps arrived in 2020 and earned the same 4.5 star rating while improving on its predecessor in nearly every meaningful way. Combat received the biggest overhaul. Where the original relied on auto-targeting, the sequel introduces equippable weapons and spells through a spirit shard system that gives players real choice. Boss encounters, absent from the first game, are a major addition and rank among the most memorable in the genre. Movement remains the foundation, with jumping, dashing, grappling, and gliding chaining together in ways that make traversal feel expressive rather than mechanical. Players frequently cite the movement system as reason enough to skip fast travel entirely. The visual presentation is extraordinary, and the story builds toward a conclusion widely described as bittersweet and affecting. Escape sequences return and remain divisive, and certain abilities feel most useful only in the area where you acquire them. Those are small complaints against a game that consistently reaches for something beautiful and lands it.

Dark Visions and the Cost of Precision

Three games on this list share a punishing sensibility and a commitment to atmosphere that borders on oppressive. They reward patience, pattern recognition, and a willingness to learn through failure.

Blasphemous, developed by The Game Kitchen and rated 4.0 stars, drops players into Cvstodia, a nightmarish world steeped in religious guilt and suffering. The pixel art is exceptional, with every screen looking like a painting pulled from a fever dream about medieval Catholic iconography. Combat rewards patience and pattern recognition over button mashing, and boss fights are highlights with massive, visually impressive enemies that test your understanding of the game’s mechanics. The Game Kitchen drew from the Semana Santa traditions of their home region in Andalusia, Spain, giving the world a cultural specificity that generic dark fantasy can’t replicate. Backtracking is the most common complaint, with limited fast travel points and respawning enemies making traversal tedious in the later hours. Quest design can be cryptic to the point of frustration, with item-delivery sequences that lack intuitive logic. Post-launch DLC expanded the game considerably and addressed early concerns about content volume.

Blasphemous 2, released in 2023 and rated 4.2 stars, kept the punishing spirit alive while addressing many frustrations from the original. The biggest addition is a weapon trinity, three distinct weapons that each carry their own moveset and traversal ability. Switching between them creates genuine variety, and the community has praised how each weapon feels distinct rather than being a stat variation. Level design earned particular attention this time, with an interconnected world that rewards exploration through shortcuts and secret areas that feel deliberately placed rather than random. Boss encounters represent a clear improvement, with fights that feel mechanically fair while maintaining real difficulty. Some players found the scope smaller than expected, with certain areas feeling underexplored compared to the density of the best zones. The pixel art remains stunning, and the religious horror aesthetic continues to stand apart from everything else in the genre.

Nine Sols from Red Candle Games, rated 4.0 stars, brings a Sekiro-inspired deflection system into a 2D side-scrolling format. Released in 2024, the game builds its entire combat loop around parrying. Successful deflections fill a Qi meter, letting players attach talismans to enemies that then detonate for massive damage. This cycle of parry, talisman, and explosion creates a rhythm that feels incredible once it clicks. Boss design is where the system shines brightest, with each encounter operating like a puzzle where the first several attempts serve as learning experiences. The hand-drawn art is spectacular, blending science fiction with ancient Chinese mythology in ways that feel organic rather than forced. Red Candle Games brought their narrative chops from Detention and Devotion into a very different genre, weaving themes of betrayal, duty, and legacy through the action. Difficulty is the primary dividing line in community discussions, with near-frame-perfect parry timing and bosses that can kill in two or three hits. Hitbox complaints come up frequently. For players who thrive on precision combat, the parry system ranks among the most satisfying in any 2D game.

Retro Craft with a Metroidvania Spirit

Shovel Knight, developed by Yacht Club Games and rated 4.5 stars, is a stage-based platformer rather than a traditional metroidvania. It earned its place on this list because it shares the genre’s dedication to tight level design, meaningful ability progression, and bosses that reward observation over brute force. The Treasure Trove collection contains four full campaigns built around distinct characters. Shovel of Hope features a pogo-bounce shovel attack. Specter of Torment redesigns levels for a wall-running, scythe-wielding character whose campaign is often cited as the strongest of the set. King of Cards introduces shoulder-bash mechanics alongside a card mini-game with its own rule set. Level design teaches mechanics through play rather than instruction, with checkpoints that reduce frustration without eliminating challenge. The chiptune soundtrack is frequently listed among the best in the genre, and boss fights against the Order of No Quarter demand learning and adaptation. Stage environments do repeat across campaigns, and by the third or fourth pass through similar themes the settings start to blur. Local co-op and a four-player Showdown mode add social options that most platformers lack.

Finding Your Path Through the Genre

Eight games, a decade of releases, and no two of them approach the metroidvania formula the same way. Hollow Knight offers the deepest world to explore. The Ori games deliver the most fluid movement. Blasphemous and Nine Sols provide the most demanding combat. Tunic hides its best content behind layers of mystery. Shovel Knight proves that level-based design can scratch the same itch when the craft is strong enough.

What ties them together isn’t mechanics or aesthetics or difficulty. It’s commitment. Every game on this list succeeds because its developers committed fully to a specific vision of what exploration, combat, and discovery should feel like. That conviction is what separates these titles from the dozens of competent metroidvanias that launch each year and quickly fade. These are the ones that stick.