10 Metroidvanias Designed for Players Who Love Exploring

I wonder whether video games are the only cultural medium where people enjoy feeling lost, but it's a constant I've observed over time while writing about them.

Regardless of the console generation, the player demographic, or the genres of the titles themselves, there's a persistent desire to experience the feeling of being off-road without actually being so, and nothing does it better than video games.

When it comes to immersion, no other industry is quite like ours at transporting you to an unknown world to live a new life, including the part where you don't know what to do with your existence.

Therefore, to celebrate those works that perfectly capture the notion of not knowing where the horizon is, I invite you to read this list of ten Metroidvanias designed for players who love getting lost.

10 Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

Contained Severity

Despite how much Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights draws inspiration from the genre's modern classics, I feel it strikes a remarkable balance between feeling lost and oriented.

Having played it without any guide, it's an accessible title that can be fully experienced without much difficulty, but only for those who truly connect with its world and understand what they need to do.

Aside from the secret ending, there aren't many instances where you'll feel disoriented, yet you're never truly at ease either, because the map makes sure to withhold information, forcing you to constantly investigate everything on your own.

You can complete the game without seeing much of the content, though if you try to thoroughly embrace what Ender Lilies has to offer, you'll find yourself getting lost more than once searching for summons, items, and, above all, the key to achieving a better climax to the campaign.

9 Moonscars

Too Much Darkness

Unlike most games on this list, Moonscars has always left me with internal doubts because I'm not sure if I was lost during my playthrough because of my own fault or by design.

Whether it was the backtracking, the similarity between the dark environments, or the sheer frustration of how punishing dying is, I was never entirely sure I was on the right path.

I'm aware this is a common characteristic of the genre, but despite having played many Metroidvanias, I'd say I've rarely felt so disoriented about what I should be doing or why I'm doing it.

If Moonscars weren't so short, I'm sure I'd rank it higher on the list. In the end, you eventually find the right route simply because, ultimately, there aren't many options to dig in (which, for me, was a blessing).

8 Rabi-Ribi

Goodbye Linearity

Among the Metroidvanias that best reward exploration, Rabi-Ribi is a major surprise whose unappealing aesthetic hides a wonderful progression system.

While the genre is generally non-linear, there are just a few instances like this one, where the title implements a truly open design that even makes subsequent playthroughs a different experience.

Since it doesn't try to imitate its contemporaries, it takes the idea of ​​being able to go wherever you desire in whatever order you want very seriously, which can be quite overwhelming at first, especially if you're used to playing only modern Metroidvanias, where everything is more focused.

As a result, getting used to it is more difficult than I'd like to admit, although that difficulty later becomes one of the reasons why everyone who has played Rabi-Ribi raves about it.

7 Sundered

In Search of Humanity

Although it doesn't quite reach the level of procedural design required to be considered a roguelite, Sundered features a map that changes with each death, leading to unexpected consequences.

Above all, of course, is that you never feel comfortable within its world, which aptly reflects its narrative theme: the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, and you're facing forces that will do everything in their power to stop you.

It's incredible, I won't deny it, but the side effect is that it's impossible to connect with the map because, while the important areas are always in the same place, the process of reaching them changes in both layout and enemies, making it impossible to anticipate.

It's never strong enough to make you lose sight of your objective, but it's always consistent enough that you can't be sure what the next room holds, which works better than it seems.

6 Blasphemous

Narrative Confusion, Spatial Confusion

We're all used to talking about how absurdly exciting and strange the Blasphemous universe is, though few seem to extend those same sentiments to its world design.

Unlike its successor, whose non-linearity is perfectly balanced and feels silky smooth, the first title in the franchise is rougher, which emphasizes the harshness of its story, but it translates to the experience itself.

Even if I disregard how tedious it is to die from falling onto spikes, the game's narrative complexities often spill over into the gameplay, where the path forward isn't always clear, and therefore, backtracking multiplies without any real guidance.

To be honest, I'd say finding your way around and figuring out how to progress in the campaign is more difficult than the bosses themselves, which I'm sure will be satisfying for those who prefer the challenge of exploration to combat.

5 Aeterna Noctis

The Vastness of the Unknown

Speaking of never being sure if you're doing the things you should be doing but doing them anyway, Aeterna Noctis is a constant string of improvisation on the fly.

I lost count of the number of bosses, platforming sections, and even entire level gimmicks I approached incorrectly, but still managed to overcome thanks to the game's open gameplay, allowing you to perform wildly functional actions.

That said, I was never entirely sure if I was following the path intended by the developers, much less if I explored the areas in the planned order, which are inherently confusing due to the way the interactive elements and enemies overlap with the art design.

Considering the game is incredibly long, with a significantly higher amount of content than average, you'll find that you won't just feel lost in Aeterna Noctis, but that you'll feel that way for many, many hours.

4 Salt and Sanctuary

Soulsborne's 2D Heir

The Metroidvania genre has been heavily influenced by FromSoftware's creations over the last decade, though not many titles exemplify that inspiration better than Salt and Sanctuary.

This is evident in its worldbuilding, ARPG gameplay approach, interconnectivity, and progression, but also in how it loves to drop you into areas where you can explore many rooms from the start, even without the tools to complete them.

Furthermore, much of its appeal lies hidden behind challenging platforming or actions that wouldn't occur to you naturally in a million years, as it emulates Dark Souls in that it doesn't mind leaving you unseen as long as it contributes to creating a believable context that truly invites exploration.

When you realize there are invisible floors to jump over or dark caves whose falls you can survive, you conclude that Salt and Sanctuary always has an ace up its sleeve and, therefore, you can never really be sure you have seen it all.

3 Tunic

Thinking is Tougher Than Fighting

It's rare to find action games where the cognitive challenges outweigh the mechanical ones, but I'm absolutely certain that's the case with Tunic.

Belonging to the unofficial subgenre known as Metroidbrainia, the game features demanding combat, but nothing compares to the difficulty of navigating its environments and figuring out where to go.

Since Tunic uses an unknown language, its main gimmick is exploring to find the manual pages that will help you more or less understand what to do and how to do it, but the amount of brainpower you'll have to dedicate to this is considerable.

Without indicators, legible words, NPCs to guide you, or intuitive situations that let you know from the start how to deal with them, the game relies strictly on your problem-solving skills, which is fantastic if you enjoy trying a thousand different ways to tackle a challenge.

We can leave the conversation about its devilishly complicated final boss for later, because believe me, your first problem will be just getting to her and figuring out what you need to do to even hurt her.

2 Hollow Knight

A World to Connect With

Among the video games that defined the 2010s, Hollow Knight is one of my favorites precisely because of the feeling this list seeks to celebrate: the joy of the unknown.

With a minimalist design in terms of guidance, the world of Hallownest does only what is strictly necessary to confine you, but never tells you where to go or how vast the map's boundaries truly are.

There are few characters and towns for the number of areas and challenges, so the emptiness is inversely proportional to your ability to orient yourself, because there aren't enough elements to guide you.

As a result, Hollow Knight places the burden of finding the main and secondary paths to see everything squarely on the player's shoulders. From completing that strange side quest you didn't even know was one, to acquiring all the upgrades or reaching the true ending, nothing in this universe is explained outright.

And yes, there's the map and markers Iselda sells you to diegetically have reminders of your objectives, but they're a wet cloth on the glorious blaze that is facing an ecosystem that isn't interested in you truly exploring it.

1 Animal Well

A Total Cognitive Challenge

However, when it comes to mind-blowing riddles, I've hardly ever encountered a more complex and layered game than Animal Well, whose map is a puzzle in itself.

With its unique tools used in ways never before seen in a video game, intricate mysteries that demand a higher IQ than I possess, and a vast number of interconnected areas despite being geographically distant, this is anything but intuitive.

You explore a main biome, discover a mechanic, think you understand it, and before you know it, an hour later, you're running around the entire area spinning a top on the ground to see if you can find the 32nd egg that allows you to progress.

From its very concept, Animal Well is a singular title, though when you add the execution, its inexplicable nature rises to such a level that it's difficult to describe, and it's as fascinating as humanly possible.

Then you realize you have twice as many tools as you initially thought and puzzles that require two doctorates to understand, but that's part of the game's magic: never knowing anything… until you know everything.