What Is a Metroidvania? The Genre Defined by Maps, Abilities, and Backtracking

A Metroidvania is a 2D (sometimes 3D) action-adventure game built on a single interconnected map you cannot fully explore until you unlock the right ability. Double jump opens a vertical shaft you saw an hour ago. A grappling hook reveals a corridor that was always there. The map is the puzzle, the abilities are the keys, and backtracking is the point. The Metroidvania genre is one of the most quietly influential templates in gaming, with roots in 1986, a peak in 1994 and 1997, and a second life as the dominant indie format from 2017 onward.

This guide explains what a Metroidvania is, where the name comes from, the five mechanics that define one, the difference between a Metroidvania and a regular platformer, the modern classics that built the indie boom, and the design problems the genre still has not solved. If you have ever closed Hollow Knight after six hours and thought “I do not remember how to get back to the City of Tears,” you have lived inside a Metroidvania.

Table of Contents

• What Is a Metroidvania?
• Where the Name Comes From
• Five Mechanics That Define a Metroidvania
• Metroidvania vs Platformer vs Soulslike
• The Modern Classics, 2017 to 2026
• 3D Metroidvanias, Do They Work?
• The Problems the Genre Has Not Solved
• Metroidvania FAQ

What Is a Metroidvania?

A Metroidvania is a sub-genre of action-adventure platformer in which the player explores a single large, interconnected world that is gated by abilities rather than by levels. You start with a limited move set, you discover doors and walls and ledges you cannot pass, you defeat a boss or find an item that grants a new power, and that power opens roughly 15 to 25 percent of the world you could not previously reach. Then it happens again. And again. Most Metroidvanias contain six to twelve of these gating abilities by the end of the game.

The defining feeling of the genre is the moment the map clicks. You spend two hours pushing east, hit a dead end, find a power-up that lets you cling to walls, walk back to a junction you marked an hour earlier, and suddenly the route you wanted is open. Designers call this gated nonlinearity. Players call it the part where the game finally makes sense.

Where the Name Comes From

The word Metroidvania is a portmanteau, fused from two Nintendo and Konami franchises that built the template independently between 1986 and 1997.

Metroid, 1986

The original Metroid on the Famicom Disk System and NES established the shape of the genre. A single interconnected world (Zebes), abilities locked behind boss fights (Morph Ball, Bombs, Ice Beam, Wave Beam), and a map you were expected to memorize because the game shipped without one. Super Metroid in 1994 added the in-game map screen, refined the controls, and is still cited by designers as the cleanest blueprint the format ever had.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, 1997

For the first 11 entries, Castlevania was a linear platformer. In 1997, Koji Igarashi rebuilt the formula on the PlayStation: one castle, full nonlinear exploration, experience points, equipment slots, RPG stats. Symphony of the Night sold poorly at launch and became a cult classic on word of mouth. By the early 2000s, fans on message boards were calling games in this style Metroidvanias to distinguish them from the classic linear Castlevanias. Igarashi himself disliked the name for years before eventually embracing it.

Metroidvania, the Term

The earliest documented uses of the word Metroidvania trace to forums and game journalism between 1999 and 2003. By the mid-2000s, the term was standard. Today it is a tag on Steam with thousands of games attached and a recognized awards category at festivals like the Game Developers Conference.

Five Mechanics That Define a Metroidvania

Not every game with a map and a power-up is a Metroidvania. The genre has a tight definition built on five interlocking systems. A title that uses three of them is Metroidvania-adjacent. A title that uses all five is the real thing.

1. One Interconnected World

There are no levels. There is no “Stage 1-1 complete, loading Stage 1-2.” The entire game is one continuous map. Rooms connect to other rooms, biomes flow into other biomes, and the loading screens (if any) are masked between corridors. This is the foundation. Without it, a game is a platformer with backtracking, not a Metroidvania.

2. Ability-Based Gating

Progress is locked behind abilities, not behind keys or progression flags. A double jump opens vertical shafts. A grappling hook bridges gaps. A water-breathing item flooded zones. Crucially, the gate has to be visible before you have the ability. You should see the wall you cannot climb, file it mentally as “come back here,” and recognize it when you return.

3. Backtracking With a Payoff

Pure linear games hate backtracking because it feels like padding. Metroidvanias reward it. When you return to an old biome with a new ability, you find new collectibles, new shortcuts, new bosses, sometimes whole new sub-areas. The world is not static, your perception of it is what changes. Good Metroidvanias make the backtrack feel like discovery. Bad ones make it feel like a chore.

4. Tight Combat With a Mid-to-High Skill Ceiling

Exploration is half the loop. The other half is combat. Metroidvanias have always demanded responsive controls, frame-precise dodges, and bosses that test reactions. The genre overlaps heavily with Soulslike design (we covered that overlap in our breakdown of what defines a Soulslike game), and many modern entries borrow stamina bars, parries, and weighty hit-stops.

5. The Map as a Puzzle

The map screen is the most-used UI element in any Metroidvania. Players pull it up dozens of times per hour. A good map is a puzzle in itself: it shows what you have explored, hints at what you have not, and quietly tracks the gates you have noticed but not yet opened. Hollow Knight famously requires you to find a cartographer (Cornifer) before each biome shows up at all, turning the map itself into a treasure to hunt.

Metroidvania vs Platformer vs Soulslike

These three genres share a lot of DNA but solve different design problems. Knowing which one you are buying is half the battle.

vs Traditional Platformer

A platformer like Celeste or Super Mario Bros. is structured around discrete levels. You finish one, the next loads. There is no shared map and no backtracking. Difficulty progresses by introducing new obstacle types in a linear sequence. A Metroidvania has the same precise jumping but trades structure for a single open world.

vs Soulslike

Soulslikes share the interconnected-world idea but center the loop on death, stamina-based combat, and bonfire checkpoints. The progression gate in a Soulslike is your skill, not an unlockable ability. Some games sit on the boundary (Hollow Knight, Salt and Sanctuary, Blasphemous) and get tagged as both. The general rule: if backtracking unlocks new geometry, it leans Metroidvania. If death is the central design pillar, it leans Soulslike.

vs Roguelike and Roguelite

Roguelikes generate the map procedurally and reset it every run. Metroidvanias hand-design every room and expect you to memorize them. The genres are opposites in their core philosophy, which we unpacked in our roguelike vs roguelite explainer. A handful of hybrid games (Dead Cells, Rogue Legacy 2) blend the two by procedurally arranging hand-designed rooms, but the pure Metroidvania experience depends on fixed geography.

The Modern Classics, 2017 to 2026

The Metroidvania revival started with one game in 2017 and has not slowed since. Indies took the format because it scales beautifully to small teams: hand-designed 2D rooms are achievable on a budget that 3D open-worlds are not. Here are the entries every fan of the genre eventually plays.

Hollow Knight, 2017

Team Cherry’s debut sold over 15 million copies as of 2025 and reset the indie ceiling. Roughly 30 to 40 hours of content on a first playthrough, a map that hides whole biomes behind optional charm combinations, and combat tight enough that the boss fights still get cited in design talks. Hollow Knight is the entry point most players use to discover whether they like the genre. Its sequel Silksong, announced in 2019 and delivered in 2025, was one of the most anticipated indie releases of the decade.

Ori and the Blind Forest (2015), Will of the Wisps (2020)

Moon Studios built two of the prettiest games ever made in the format. The first is more pure platformer, the sequel leans hard into combat. Together they form the gold standard for production polish: animated by hand, scored by an orchestra, and tuned to within a frame of perfection on most movement abilities.

Metroid Dread, 2021

The first new 2D Metroid in 19 years, developed by MercurySteam under Nintendo’s supervision. Dread proved the original franchise still works in the modern era, with the EMMI stealth segments adding a tension layer the genre rarely uses. We covered some of the related history when Atari acquired the early Wizardry games and the broader question of who owns gaming’s foundational templates.

Blasphemous, Bloodstained, and the Others

Blasphemous (2019, sequel 2023) brought a Spanish Catholic-horror aesthetic and brutal difficulty. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (2019) was Koji Igarashi’s spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night, Kickstarter-funded by fans who wanted the old Castlevania loop preserved. Other notable entries: The Messenger, Axiom Verge, Guacamelee, Souldiers, Afterimage, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (2024), and the long tail of itch.io indies the genre tag has helped surface (we listed several in our round-up of indie games that still hold up).

3D Metroidvanias, Do They Work?

The classic Metroidvania is 2D. The map is legible because it is a flat grid you can hold in your head. 3D breaks that legibility. Despite this, several games have tried.

Metroid Prime (2002) is the strongest argument that 3D Metroidvanias can work, by translating the gating system into first-person environments and adding scan-visor exploration. The Soul Reaver and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate experiments are weaker. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor (2019, 2023) are openly Metroidvania-shaped in 3D third-person, with ability-gated planets and backtracking that unlocks new areas. The general lesson from two decades of experiments: 3D Metroidvanias work when the world is laid out as a 2D map with vertical layers, not when it is a true 3D sphere of exploration.

The Problems the Genre Has Not Solved

For all the success of the indie boom, the Metroidvania format has persistent design problems that have not been cracked in 40 years.

The Late-Game Traversal Tax

By hour 20, you have unlocked every traversal ability, but the map is enormous and the fast-travel network is usually limited. Walking from the eastern boss to the western collectible takes seven minutes. Some games solve this with late-unlock teleporters (Hollow Knight stagways, Metroid Dread). Others just shrug and make you walk. It remains the single most-complained-about aspect of the genre.

Lost Player Syndrome

If a player puts the game down for two weeks and comes back, they have no idea where to go. The map has 200 rooms, no obvious next-step marker, and the last quest log entry is cryptic. Designers have tried various fixes: optional waypoints, NPCs who hint at the next biome, a “where to go next” toggle. None of them feel native to the genre’s exploration philosophy. The tension between freedom and guidance is unsolved.

Length Creep

Early Metroidvanias were 8 to 12 hours. Modern ones routinely exceed 30 hours for the main path and 50 to 80 for a true 100 percent run. That is great for players who love the loop and a brick wall for everyone else. The genre needs more 10-hour entries, but the indie market keeps rewarding the bloated ones because Steam reviews count value-per-hour. The tension is real, and most developers admit privately that they would prefer to ship tighter games.

Metroidvania FAQ

What is the best Metroidvania for a beginner?

Ori and the Blind Forest is the friendliest entry: forgiving checkpoints, accessible combat, and a tightly scoped map that does not overwhelm. Hollow Knight is the canonical recommendation but has a steep difficulty curve. Guacamelee and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown are also gentle starts for first-time players.

Is The Legend of Zelda a Metroidvania?

Not quite. Zelda games share the ability-gating idea (the hookshot opens new areas), but they are top-down or 3D action-adventure with dungeon-based structure, not 2D side-scrolling open-map exploration. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the closest the franchise has come to a true Metroidvania.

How long is a typical Metroidvania?

Main path: 12 to 25 hours for most modern entries. 100 percent completion: 25 to 50 hours, sometimes more (Hollow Knight Steel Soul plus all charms can hit 80). Older Metroidvanias from the GBA and DS era ran 8 to 12 hours start to finish.

Do Metroidvanias have permadeath?

Generally no. Standard Metroidvanias use a checkpoint or bench system. Some games offer a hardcore mode (Hollow Knight Steel Soul, Metroid Dread Dread Mode) that adds permadeath as an optional layer, but it is never the default. The genre relies on long single-runs that would not be possible with rogue-style restarts.

Which Metroidvania has been the most influential on modern indies?

Two answers: Super Metroid (1994) is the structural blueprint every modern entry quietly imitates. Hollow Knight (2017) is the commercial blueprint that proved a small team could ship a 30-hour Metroidvania, sell 15 million copies, and define the indie ceiling for nearly a decade.

The Genre That Refuses to Age

The Metroidvania is one of the few game formats that has stayed structurally intact for 40 years. The 1986 Metroid blueprint still describes Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in 2024. New entries refine the combat, the art, the storytelling, and the map design, but the core loop (explore, hit a wall, find a key, return to the wall) is untouched. Few genres can claim that kind of durability. If you have not played one in a while, pick up Hollow Knight or Ori and rediscover why the loop has outlasted entire console generations. And if you finished one recently, our indie games hall of fame and deep-dive on Iron Lung lore are the natural next stops.