Sprawling game world where progress is gated behind item acquisition. (Need the freeze-ray to open certain doors, or the high-jump boots to get up to certain platforms, etc.)
To add to this: the origin of the name comes from Castlevania games that were made in the style of Metroid games (above definition), it later became a definition for all games with similar gameplay where your map progression is gated behind gear/skill progression. Great examples are, obviously, Metroid and Castlevania, but “recently” we got Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Grime and some others. Objectively you could say that Hollow Knight is the primary cause of the genre’s recent popularity with indie developers, as it was a super successful indie game.
![[All] They've become a bit of a buzzword, haven't they?](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/a242a419-5071-435f-ad6e-01b31ace74e8.webp){kind=link}
I don’t know what a Metroidvania is
Sprawling game world where progress is gated behind item acquisition. (Need the freeze-ray to open certain doors, or the high-jump boots to get up to certain platforms, etc.)
Ah thank you! Not OP, but I’ve not known for the longest time and been too scared to ask :)
To add to this: the origin of the name comes from Castlevania games that were made in the style of Metroid games (above definition), it later became a definition for all games with similar gameplay where your map progression is gated behind gear/skill progression. Great examples are, obviously, Metroid and Castlevania, but “recently” we got Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Grime and some others. Objectively you could say that Hollow Knight is the primary cause of the genre’s recent popularity with indie developers, as it was a super successful indie game.
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