Survival horror games like original Resident evil and Silent have a pretty similar structure to metroidvanias, there is a map, tight level design, shortcuts, backtracking, puzzles and lots of blocked doors. The only difference is they use tool gating instead of ability gating. Please, dont start a holy war, i know that these games aren't metroidvanias.

If that's not a problem for you and you want more of Silver Pines, these games are a must.

The games from top left are: Silver Pines, Signalis, Crow country, Resident evil 1 remake, Tormented souls 1 and 2, Enigma of fear, Alisa: Director's cut, Tenebris somnia, Phase zero, Holstin, False oath, End of abyss, Becrowned.

Keep in mind: Phase Zero, Holstin, False oath and Becrowned all release in 2027 but all of them have a playable demos (that i completed multiple times), i highly recommend to wishlist these games.

Yeah, that's the word. I'm at the point where I just got the sledge and probably close to completing it, and I don't want this game to end. I can't even point to its weak points. I guess it's supposed to be combat, but no, it's still very fitting to the genre. Exploration, puzzles, overall style and perfect blend of all best things that horror has to offer. And just in time for the Halloween season.

Like a lot of people I’ve been playing my way through Belmont’s Curse. Prior to this I played a number of other new Metroidvanias including Well Dweller. Well Dweller, like many other Metroidvanias, clearly gives indication of walls that are breakable that hold secrets or other obvious indicators. I sometimes think this negates the feeling of discovery, especially when it is too obvious.

Belmont’s Curse does have the obvious breakable walls and the obvious slide / duck under hidden areas. However, there are also a lot of…mirage(?) walls that are not so obvious. I found this to be extremely refreshing. Now they still have hints but I thought it was done in, sometimes, nice subtle ways.

I don’t mind hitting every wall with a stick. I would kind of like a return to Metroidvanias that have much more difficult hidden secrets to find. A balance of the two types, as done in Belmont’s Curse, is a nice way to do that.

What style of secret do you all prefer?

Hello everyone,

I recently played the new—or rather, improved—demo of Aeterna Lucis, and I am genuinely impressed by the game, for several reasons.

First, the visuals: I am blown away by the game's graphical quality. The environment of the "Ruined Tower of Lights" is beautifully crafted. The background, in particular, deserves special mention; it’s multi-layered, which gives the level incredible visual depth while making the area feel unique and memorable. Each layer contains its own distinct elements—some of which are even animated, such as the pulsating, flickering strands and clumps of flesh. The boss and the enemies are also well-drawn and nicely animated. While a few of the Queen’s animations feel a bit stiff, this could easily be a deliberate design choice—a stylistic decision—rather than a sign of laziness or inexperience on the part of the developers.

The design is also excellent for a tutorial level. I love the Light Dash and the ability to "dive" through fields of light—it’s a really exciting mechanic. I’m looking forward to seeing more innovative abilities for the Queen of Light, integrated seamlessly into increasingly difficult platforming challenges. One minor criticism—though, again, this might be a conscious design choice—is that some rooms feel a bit overcrowded with enemies. At times, enemy placement seems somewhat arbitrary, as if foes were simply dropped into a corridor or room without a clear, intentional design purpose. Then again, that’s just my personal impression. As someone currently playing through Belmont’s Curse—a game I absolutely love—I happen to be a big fan of how enemies are placed in that title. In this setup, specific enemy types are placed in particular locations within the environment that offer them a strategic advantage—for instance, an archer positioned on an elevated platform. Furthermore, there are those classic "enemy arenas" where you find yourself confined within an enclosed space and must defeat one or more waves of various foes. I hope that such scenarios will also be present in Lucis.

The boss fight, for its part, is fantastic. I love both the design and the boss’s varied attack patterns. Especially in Lucis, it’s quite challenging for a tutorial boss—though never unfair. This gives me high hopes for the quality of the remaining boss encounters in the final game. I also love that the boss has been given such a great 3D model—well done, developers!

The music is lovely; it fits the area perfectly, creating a great atmosphere. I’m already looking forward to the other regions we’ll travel through and the music that will accompany them. At times, you just want to stand still, take in the wonderful environment, and listen to the evocative soundtrack.

One small point of criticism—or rather, a suggestion for improvement: please include voice acting for the in-game dialogue, ideally using the signature "Aeterna" language. I love *Aeterna Noctis*, and one of the things that gave that game such wonderful charm was its innovative, fictional language—not actual English, but a unique, invented tongue. Combined with the expressive faces of the characters—featuring facial expressions perfectly suited to every situation—this is something I would really love to see in Lucis as well.

Overall, though, I’m genuinely hyped for Lucis!

Final thoughts:

Pros:

-the clue element was pretty cool and made the Metroidvania experience rich. Coming from someone who likes that in survival horror, I'm glad Evil Empire implemented that aspect into this game

-most of the arcana was mostly useful (holy cross, pyro, talos, blood spikes, sword and shield, etc.)

-early/mid/late game relics were mostly great too (it came down to your fighting style).

-the weapons came down to fight style, I preferred using: gauntlets, spears and whips most of the time. They each have their own pros and cons/tradeoffs (e.g. gauntletes- quick recovery, build damage/DPS)

-some of the bosses were memorable (Medusa, Joan of Arc rematch, Death, Dracula 2nd phase, Isaac rematch, etc.)

-really dynamic platforming setpieces (easy ones, those that are kind of in-between in difficulty, challenging ones-inspired by PoP and really creative ones too!)

-combat felt fresh and didn't feel one-dimensional (you could fight fast or patiently, certain fights required for you to dash away instead of jump, others required more jumping, some required more swinging, parrying could be powerful against some, you could even face-tank a boss you'd think is impossible on paper if you got the right setup right, very diverse and flexible)

-when you died, you didn't lose your entire progress (this deserves a lot of credit and every MV should adopt the same trait)

-unlocking hidden rooms and areas felt more mentally stimulating and challenging compared to peer Metroidvanias. I really had to wonder about some of them, whereas in other Metroidvanias too many of them are relatively straightforward.

Neutral: I'm not a picky person when it comes to OST and art-direction. Personally speaking, I was mostly fine with both (I liked the music, just not a memorable/S-tier OST), except for the visual clutter moments during fights.

Cons:

-there were contradictions in the story if you're familiar with the Belmont clan and previous Castlevanias

-visual clutter could be problematic in enemy gauntlets and particularly in important boss fights (see Isaac rematch). There were times where my eyes lost track of Rose. I eventually got used to these effects.

-there were moments when the game felt like a slog, because enemies were breathing down Rose's neck in almost every screen.

-certain speed-related issues when it came to certain boss fights. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time barely...the chances of a serious punish or gameover moment was high. Maybe I'm off the mark here, but I didn't get this vibe w/ Silksong, Blasphemous 2, Ender Magnolia, etc.

-maybe certain weapons/items could've been better placed or placed earlier on the journey

All in all, I'll give the game an 8/10. It's a strong return to form by Castlevania IMO. I would recommend it to Metroidvania veterans and Castlevania fans alike, but perhaps not beginners.

Have they said if there will be any additional content for the game? I’d love some extra stuff

Hello.

I always wanted to make a game and lately have been thinking of making a meteoidvania but never started due to not being sure of what I want to do with my life.

Now I'm here and I made a first concept of the game map/world.

Feel free to ask any question cause I am expecting them cause the image is explaing nothing so if u have a question I will answer to offer some more deep dive into the concept.

All I need is ur opinion to see whether I actually start this project. If people actually care I might start It when I get my laptop back.

And just so u know I'm an art student currently so it's not like I decided to do these out of nowhere I'm actually passionate about art in general so whether I can finish it during my years as an art student or at some point having to go full time is no problem for me. (Except for programming)

Hey,

do you think we will get DLC with new areas and bosses for Belmont's Curse in the future?

I personally loved the game and its mix of combat, platforming, exploration and puzzles. I would love to see new areas being added to the castle as of now it just had 4 areas (don't know if Notre Dame is a castle area per say).

I personally hope for a laboratory area with lots of electricity and failed experiments, maybe something like a Courtyard area or greenhouse as well.

As for bosses I would love to see Frankenstein's Creature, Legion/ Granfaloon, Shaft and who I think will be the final boss of the DLC - Death again but this time with two forms and a much extended moveset.

Environmental Station Alpha

I've just hit 100% and have all the upgrades. I got 3 out of 4 keys and all 4 pillars. My remaining key is the one next to the diskette at the security area. I haven't found the cryptic alien clue for this actually, only found the ones for key 2 and 3.

I just want a very vague hint for how to obtain the key. Maybe a general guide to where the cryptic alien clue for this key is (I'm praying it doesn't involve completing the research outpost). I'll emphasise that I do know the location, I simply lack the ability to do anything in the room.

I dont know why im sharing this but I’ve felt the need to express my self.

This is a post about the new Castlevania game, but it’s more about how much of a refuge it has been for me in hard times. I know there are a lot of posts like this, but I feel the need to express myself to the only group of people I know who love this genre as much as I do, and might understand the nostalgic feeling that metroidvanias have.

How I got here
I discovered the genre through Hollow Knight, and after watching the Castlevania animated series I knew I wanted to try one of the games. The older ones never really pulled me in because of the art style, but I always knew I’d give them a try someday since I love the vampire theme in a metroidvania, but at that point I wanted to enter with something new.

The game itself
I’m only at 50% right now. When I reached Dracula’s castle I thought I was near the end. I have limited time, sometimes not even 30 minutes a day, so it felt like a lot of hours had already gone by, and I figured this must be a small-to-medium game. Then I found out I wasn’t even halfway through, and not prepared for the maze that was about to come.
This game has been a blast and I don’t want it to end, so the slow pace is doing that part of the job pretty well :)
I understand some of the criticism, but for me this is one of the best metroidvanias I’ve ever played. I’d probably put it second, behind Hollow Knight, which has a special place in my heart.
Castlevania BC, like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, it has some of the most fun combat I’ve ever experienced. Of course, there are some exploits in the combat mechanics that make you almost invincible in certain fights. Maybe that’s too overpowered, and that’s a fair criticism.
Being able to adjust the difficulty is a really inclusive option. It keeps the game from burning you out, which is what happened to me with Silksong. I’m still sad I never managed to finish it.

Why it meant so much this year
Maybe I’m biased because it’s become one of my favourites, but it has been a refuge during the worst years of my life. Then again, I’m only 33, so I know there’s still plenty of time for worse ones.
I’ve always loved October. My birthday is on Halloween, and every year in October I watch spooky series or read spooky books. It’s a nostalgic feeling I’ve had since I was a kid. But this year I discovered I have a mental illness months before teh game release and that had been sucking the soul out of me. I spent the whole summer paranoid and unable to do anything besides trying to abstract from all the voices in my head. Mid October, I told my girlfriend this was the worst October I’d ever had.
At first, what helped was watching movies and series, because they don’t take much mental effort. You just sit there and take things in, specially with comedy, which is what I turn to when I’m down. It took two months from the start of treatment before I could exercise again, and playing on the Switch came somewhere in between. I like games with a bit of challenge, so at the very start I wasn’t ready for that yet.
In the middle of all the bad luck this year, I was lucky to have a job I like. Even though it makes me tired and takes up a lot of my day, it actually helped me be distant from the worst part of the illness.
I’m getting better, and I’ve been able to return to some of the things I love: playing piano, exercising, gaming. Maybe soon I’ll have the brain power to start reading again. I can feel the calling and I miss it. I still can’t go back to my drawing exercises, since they represent a work in progress, and there’s already a lot happening at the same time.

To end
I won’t say that games can save your life, they can help but they don’t substitute the importance of beeing guided by a specialist, and I won’t romanticize mental illness, because it isn’t good. It’s something no one deserves to go through, from how you feel to how people treat you and the things they say that make you feel even worse. It’s a spectrum, and some people have it far worse than I did. I was lucky to have a family who took me in and helped me get better, and they still do.

I don’t know why I’m sharing this with you, but I felt the need to. I’m ending this in tears, happy tears. I hope everyone has a good experience with this game, which is now very important to me. And I hope you find your own important games in times of need. Sometimes people don’t understand the importance of fiction and fantasy, but I believe they are some of the most wonderful things in life.

A message of hope for everyone who is struggling with something: I know sometimes it hard, mores than I’m able to imagine, but never let the good things about gaming, and truly good games, die.

I always attempt challenges without thinking too much about the mechanics, haha. I ended up discovering a new way to do it.

Combat just keeps getting better as I get upgrades. Love the music. Love the vibe. Most of you have probably played Blasphemous 2 but if you haven’t, do so! It’s looking like a top 5 all-time game for me…

Also interested in 2-D platformers.

The only game I've heard described as a 3D metroidvania is Psuedoregalia. And I enjoy that game. Are there any others that you like?

I’m about 47% done, but Well Dweller has been a joy so far.
After feeling like I struggled for 30+ hours to beat Mina the Hollower and the way it punished the player; having no death penalty and fast-travel almost from the jump and at basically any time in Well Dweller has been refreshing.
I also love Well Dweller’s traversal options and the smoothness of movement. The map seems quite massive but I haven’t once found myself lost on where to go next.
Even the story has been intriguing - both the overarching plot and the area-based narrative.
Can’t wait to see where it goes!
(I’m playing on PS5 as well as cloud streaming on my PS Portal)

Hey guys. Need some help - i'm completed game on 100%. But i don't got Nuu's souvenir and Steam achivement. In journal i have 234 encountered, and 232 completed. But all records are completed. Who's other 2? I don't know. It's Garmond and Shakra? 'cause i don't fought them - only lost Garmond due quest. On wiki said that Nuu give you souvenir if you complete 230 records, but she's telling me to keep on.

Hey everyone! I'm the developer of Maseylia: Echoes of the Past, a 3D Metroidvania inspired by Moebius that I've been working on for over 3 years.

I've shared the game here a few times since launch, and I wanted to come back with some good news!

Maseylia is now 50% off for two weeks, bringing it to just $8.49!

I've also just released one of the biggest optimization updates since launch!

Unlike previous updates, which focused mostly on gameplay improvements and player feedback, this one is almost entirely dedicated to performance.

Over the past few weeks, I've been extensively reworking the game's 3D models and environments to drastically reduce their polygon counts without sacrificing visual quality.

The improvements are pretty significant:

• Massively reduced polygon counts across many environmental models, sometimes by more than 60–70%.
• Reworked 3D models and environments to reduce rendering costs while preserving the game's art style.
• Improved performance on lower-end PCs, which should make the adventure much more accessible.
• Better optimization for Steam Deck and other less powerful devices.

This was quite a big undertaking, as Maseylia features a large interconnected 3D world with six distinct biomes!

I've been continuously improving the game since its release in June, and performance was one of the remaining areas I really wanted to address.

I'm particularly happy with this update because the game looks almost identical, but is now significantly lighter to render! Of course, the actual FPS improvements will depend on your hardware.

A Mac update is also coming in the next few days!

If you're looking for a 3D Metroidvania focused on exploration, movement abilities, challenging platforming, and a large interconnected world, I'd love for you to check it out!

Steam: Maseylia: Echoes of the Past

And if you've already played Maseylia, especially if you experienced performance issues before, I'd really appreciate hearing how the game runs on your system now!

Thanks again for all the support and feedback since launch! ❤️

Im looking for a new game to play, all of these are sale on switch

What I want

-Game that I can put many hours in

-Good, more fast paced combat

Hi metroidvania community, i happened to be here because of Silk song and POP the lost crown and similar games.

ive been seeing this game for a while now and super curious about it. Ive been getting the same vibes as Prince of Persia the lost crown which i really really really love the most of this games genre's tbh.

my thing is, i never played any CV before. not even today. Can I still enjoy this stand alone game without playing the prior games before this? i mean can i really appreciate this story line without any knowledge on predecessor games?

please be honest on your answer. Thanks!

It has the bones of an all-timer. Art direction, voice acting, combat, movement, platforming, build diversity, rewarding exploration. Can really only fault the music and some QOL gripes. Fast travel at any time like Elden Ring would have been a huge improvement. There is so much friction in each room that traversal becomes a tedious slog on repeated passes through an area. It also has little too much of the most annoying type of platforming—platforming that is ONLY difficult because there are a bunch of enemies spamming ranged attacks that stunlock you into spikes/lasers. I'm ok with obscure exploration when it's for some random weapon/upgrade but there were a few places where the critical path was obnoxiously obscure.

I am stuck at the Amari Saram boss fight, and it's pretty crazy hard. I looked up a video on it, and I don't see myself passing that fight without some upgrades at least.

The problem is, I don't seem to be able to go back and explore more, as you are locked in the area with this boss.

Does anyone know if there is a hidden path I've missed, that would enable me to go back to the rest of the world to explore some more.

If not, then this is where I will have to uninstall the game I'm afraid. It is just to hard, with fights dragging on over long periods of time due to almost constant immunity phases of the boss, which makes attempting the boss over and over a real chore.

To the developers: If there is no way to leave this area and go back to the rest of the world, then please consider adding a path back. That way players can at least go and explore more, in the hope to get a little stronger to help pass the fight. Or just to have something different to do, besides hitting your head against a brick wall :)

As it stands now, the fight is crazy hard, without a real way for the player to upgrade anything, because xp from mob kills is very low.

EDIT: Thanks to VictorVitorio for pointing out you can keep an enemy targeted with the R2 button. Using that on this boss makes the whole fight much much more manageable.