An Indie Metroidvania Revival

Since my first quest to defeat The Lord of Darkness, Count Dracula, and my first adventure exploring the hostile planet, Zebes, I have been hopelessly addicted to the (now) NES classics, Castlevania and Metroid. These two franchises changed the gaming industry, spawned a timeless genre of games, and continue to inspire countless developers around the world even today. Sadly, it has been 5 years since we received a Metroid game from Nintendo, and there is still no official word on when Samus will hunt again. Even worse, the future of the Castlevania franchise seems bleak as Igarashi Koji left Konami in 2014, and recent happenings within the once-great Japanese developer paint an even darker picture. Thankfully, the past few weeks have given fans like myself a new reason to get excited.

With the recent Sword or Whip teaser site and the subsequent, wildly successful Kickstarter for Igarashi Koji’s new Castlevania-style game, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, my cursed spirit has been cleansed and revived as hope has once again found a place in my heart. Okay, so maybe that’s a little dramatic, but I can’t even begin to express how impossibly excited I am for this new game. If you honestly knew how much time I put into playing around on the teaser site, or how much I donated towards the project on Kickstarter, you might begin to understand.

While Igarashi’s new game is tentatively set for release in 2017, there are still a lot of incredible indie developers who are still creating games that speak to fans like myself, and some of these games have even become instant classics themselves (in my humble opinion). So, in honor of Igarashi-san’s new project, and in attempt to satiate fans like myself who are craving another great Metroidvania experience, I’ve decided to share a few of my other favorite, modern Metroidvania games as well as a few upcoming ones that I’m excited for.

Here are 5 must-play Metroidvania games that are available now and 5 exciting others that are still to come.