The Best Indie Metroidvania Games on Steam
Hollow Knight redefined what a Metroidvania could be. Nine Sols pushed the genre into new territory. Ori made you feel things you did not expect. These are the best indie Metroidvania games on Steam right now: verified, ranked, and brutally honest about difficulty.
The Metroidvania genre has been one of the most reliably excellent categories in indie gaming for the past decade. The structure is built for compelling design: a world that opens as you get stronger, exploration that rewards curiosity, and a progression loop that makes you feel genuinely capable by the end. When it works, it is one of the most satisfying game structures ever designed. When it does not, it is a maze.
I have played most of the major entries in this genre and lost embarrassing amounts of time to them. Some of them have genuinely annoyed the hell out of me. Most of them have been worth it. What follows are the ones worth your time, with honest notes on difficulty for anyone who has been burned by a Metroidvania that did not warn them what they were getting into.
Hollow Knight
540,976 reviews | 97% Overwhelmingly Positive | Free to Play
Hollow Knight is the benchmark. Everything else in this list gets measured against it. Team Cherry, three people, built one of the most complete, visually stunning, and mechanically refined games in the genre's history and priced it at free to play. 541,000 Steam reviews at 97% positive is not hype. It is the community arriving at consensus over eight years of play.
The world of Hallownest is the first thing that distinguishes it. The art is hand-drawn, distinctive, and consistent in a way that AAA studios with hundred-person teams rarely achieve. The lore is embedded in the environment rather than explained through cutscenes: you piece together what happened to this underground kingdom gradually, and the picture that forms is genuinely haunting.
The combat is precise and demanding. Hollow Knight does not have difficulty options. If you struggle with the boss encounters, you practice until you learn the pattern. My honest view: stick with it past the first three bosses. The game opens up in a way that makes the difficulty feel rewarding rather than punishing, and the moment you click with the movement system is one of gaming's better feelings. It is genuinely one of the best games I've played.
Hollow Knight on Steam -- Free to PlayOri and the Will of the Wisps
143,995 reviews | 97% Overwhelmingly Positive | Free to Play
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is the most visually beautiful game in this genre. The art direction is watercolour and light, every frame a painting, the kind of game you stop and look at rather than sprint through. If Hollow Knight is the benchmark for depth and challenge, Ori is the benchmark for presentation and emotional resonance.
The movement system is exceptional. Ori controls with a fluidity that makes exploration feel like play rather than traversal. The ability unlocks are satisfying, the world opens naturally, and the pacing is better managed than most Metroidvanias at this scale.
The combat is more accessible than Hollow Knight. The game has difficulty options and the boss encounters are well-telegraphed. This makes it the better recommendation for players who want the genre experience without the wall-punishing difficulty ceiling. It is also, genuinely, a game that will make you feel things in its final hour. I did not expect that the first time I played it.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps on Steam -- Free to PlayNine Sols
39,879 reviews | 95% Very Positive | Free to Play
Nine Sols is the Sekiro of Metroidvanias. The combat is built around parrying: precise, timing-dependent deflection that punishes button mashing and rewards patience. If you have played From Software's games and found the parry system satisfying, Nine Sols will click immediately. If you found it infuriating, prepare for a similar relationship.
The setting is what makes it stand out from the crowd. Taiwanese mythology and Taopunk aesthetics, Chinese folklore filtered through a sci-fi lens, give it a visual and narrative identity unlike anything else in the genre. The world is a post-apocalyptic Solarpunk dome called New Kunlun, the enemies draw from Chinese mythological creatures, and the protagonist's movement system incorporates a Sekiro-style grapple that gives exploration a distinctively kinetic feel.
The difficulty is genuinely high. Boss encounters require learning specific parry windows and exploit patterns, and the game does not soften this for casual players. I found it one of the most satisfying games I have played in recent years. I'll also not pretend some of those boss encounters didn't make me genuinely, briefly, fecking furious.
Nine Sols on Steam -- Free to PlayBlasphemous 2
64,250 reviews | 93% Very Positive | Free to Play
Blasphemous 2 is the sequel to one of the most visually distinctive Metroidvanias ever made, and it improves on the original in almost every meaningful way. The game is drenched in dark Spanish Catholic imagery: guilt, penance, twisted religious iconography turned into monster design, in a way that is genuinely unlike anything else in the genre.
The pixel art is extraordinary. The animation work on the boss encounters in particular is the kind of thing you screenshot and use as a desktop wallpaper. Three starting weapon types give the game more build variety than most Metroidvanias offer, and the world design is labyrinthine in ways that reward players who explore thoroughly rather than rushing the critical path.
Difficulty sits between Ori and Nine Sols. Demanding but fair, with boss encounters that feel designed to be learned rather than to punish. The first game is worth playing for context but not required. Blasphemous 2 works as a standalone entry.
Blasphemous 2 on Steam -- Free to PlayAxiom Verge
374,991 reviews | 97% Overwhelmingly Positive | Free to Play
Axiom Verge was made by one person over five years. Tom Happ built the game, the music, the pixel art, the engine: everything. The result is the closest thing to a new Metroid the genre has produced since Nintendo stopped making the kind of Metroid people actually wanted.
The atmosphere is classic Metroid: lonely, alien, oppressive in a way that makes exploration feel dangerous. The alien world is genuinely disorienting in its early hours, which is a feature rather than a bug. The weapons and tools are inventive: a glitch gun that corrupts enemies, a drone that explores areas too small for the protagonist, traversal tools that recontextualise previously explored areas in satisfying ways.
The pixel art style is deliberately retro but the game design is not. Axiom Verge is one of the most tightly constructed Metroidvanias available, and for players who grew up with the original Super Metroid, it scratches a specific itch that very few games manage.
Axiom Verge on Steam -- Free to Play