Eight games, eight ways to enlarge a territory. The review that DualShockers publishes on November 10, 2026 starts from a concrete idea: there are metroidvanias that not only expand the map when the player achieves a new ability, but also expand in the head when he understands what happened before in that place. The selection goes from guacamee! 2 to Hollow Knight and mix reboots in 3D, small studio jewelry and lovecraftian horror.
Best Metroidvanias: When the Stage also tells the story
Gender is associated with backtracking and skills progression. What this list of best metroidvanias proposes is to look at the other side: the background that accumulates. Each chosen title reveals new layers of your fiction as you go along, and that knowledge changes the way you read the map.
guacamee! 2 and the Mexiverse
Drinkbox Studios was inspired by Mexican folk art and wrestling for the first guacamee!, with Agave farmer Juan Aguacate turned into a fighter. The sequel breaks the frame: Avocado travels to the Mexiverse, a multiverse of alternative timelines where it crosses with different versions of allies and villains and visits kingdoms like the otherworld.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, a third-person Metroidvania
Konami restarted her saga with this third-person hack and slash that retains the interconnected scanning structure. The player plays Gabriel Belmont, knight of the Brotherhood of Light, in 11th century Europe, with the task of defeating the Lords of Shadow and Satan. the DLCs REVERIE and resurrection They take him to Carmilla Castle to face the Forgotten One, and the outcome turns the character into Dracula.
Shadow Complex and the complex that is not seen
Chair Entertainment signed one of the first Metroidvanias that debuted exclusively on an Xbox console. Its setting is military science fiction and shares universe with the literary saga Empire by Orson Scott Card. Jason Fleming and his girlfriend Claire explore some caves within a mountain and discover that they lead to a labyrinthine complex controlled by the militant group Progressive Restoration. Fleming must rescue Claire and prevent the group from causing a second civil war in the United States.
Dive or Die – Children of Rain: Descend to Understand
The Drop Rate Studio title came in 2026 with Lovecraftian terror and a near future in which a supernatural black rain flooded almost everything. The player manages one of the last human settlements and sends people to dive in the Abyssal Pool to get supplies and placate the Rainmaker, a Cthulhu-type entity, within 40 days. The first dives show remains of skyscrapers; The more you go down, the clearer it is that the well has no visible bottom.
Ori: From Nibel to Niwen
Moon Studios built two Metroidvanias published by Xbox and Microsoft. Ori and the Blind Forest It takes place in the forest of Nibel and its surroundings, with nods to lands that would come later. On Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the spirit Ori and the Ku owl appear in the Niwen region, which lost its own Spirit Tree and saw its inhabitants corrupted by that absence.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and the planet Aether
The sequel is approximately one year after the first Metroid Prime. Samus Aran travels to Aether to rescue Marines from the Galactic Federation and discovers that the planet is home to the Luminoth, an advanced moth-looking race, and that it is at the center of a dimensional crack towards Dark Aether, an alternate world. hostile.
Valdis Story: Abyssal City, the city that continues to grow
EndlessFluff Games signs this second title, starring the warrior Wyatt and the queen magician, who are looking for his father and end up in the submerged city of Sitheil. There you have to make your way between angels and demons while the reach of an Atlantis city is discovered. The ending even drops that there could be other magical cities scattered around the world.
Hollow Knight, the closing of the list
Team Cherry sets its game in Hallownest, a ruined underground insectoid kingdom by an outbreak of infection. The gentleman tours sub-regions like City of Tears and Crystal Peak, talks to his inhabitants and accesses the Dream Realm, and every answer about the kingdom’s past rearranges what the player thinks he knows about the map.
Of the eight, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow It appears as one of the most accessible gateways for those who come to the genre, while Hollow Knight and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes They ask for more commitment. Whoever wants to check the effect of a map that is enlarged with the information has a place to choose: from the DrinkBox multiverse to the bottomless pit of Drop Rate Studio.
Read also
- Hollow Knight E Silksong Já Têm Edições Physical Com Map
- Hollow Knight and Silksong Already have physical editions with map
- Games where you are the villain: the list of dualshockers
Source: Dualshockers
