ArtPlay and 505 Games unveiledBloodstained: The Scarlet Engagementduring Sony’sState of Playthis week, and the game looks a whole lot like its predecessor,Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. As in that 2019 game, The Scarlet Engagement will have players exploring a 2.5D,Castlevania-inspired world, fighting big monsters, and chowing down on rice dishes they pull out of treasure chests. In fact, it’s so similar that it highlights just how much the ground has shifted for the genre in the six years since its predecessor’s launch.
Metroidvanias In The 2010s
For about a decade, Metroidvanias were the stereotypical indie genre. This attitude pops up in memes likethis onethat shows a variation of the “Daily Struggle” meme with a sweating indie dev choosing between making a Metroidvania, a Roguelike, or a Soulslike. It presents these developers as, in their own way, as prone to trend-chasing as triple-A. It’s just that, where the triple-A buttons might be Open-world game, Third-person action-adventure, and Live-service games, indie devs opt for smaller genres that require fewer resources. Metroidvanias are a great way to get a lot out of a little, with sprawling levels and low production value.
When I first started covering games as a freelancer, I zeroed in on Metroidvanias because a) they were smaller games that an inexperienced writer could be trusted with and b) there were a lot of them. In the space of a few months in 2018,Dead Cells, Death’s Gambit, Chasm, Yoku’s Island Express, Guacamelee! 2,The Messenger, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, Timespinner, and the Switch version ofHollow Knight(which triggered its explosion in popularity) were all released. Some had new takes on the classic Metroidvania formula — Chasm and Dead Cells were roguelikes, Yoku’s Island Express controlled like a pinball machine — but they were all building on the same exploration-focused foundation.
We’ve still seen some major indie Metroidvanias in recent years. Animal Well was one of the breakout indie hits of 2024 andHollow Knight: Silksongis one of the most anticipated games on the horizon, no qualifier needed. But, increasingly, indies don’t have an exclusive claim to the Metroidvania. Larger companies have attempted to revive the double-A space that languished during the indie explosion, and Metroidvanias are an obvious place to start.
Metroidvanias In The 2020s
Released at the tail-end of the 2010s, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night presaged the shift that the genre would undergo in the decade to come. It can be difficult to know where to draw the line between indie and double-A, and ultimately, you have to take a few factors into account. How many people were involved? How much did it cost to make? How high is the production value? If the answer to those questions falls somewhere between the numbers of an indie and a triple-A, ta-da, you’ve got a double-A.
Yes, I know this isn’t particularly scientific.
In the past five years, we’ve seenOri and the Will of the Wisps,Metroid Dread, andPrince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Next month,Shadow Labyrintharrives and, next year, we’ll be playing Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement. Though they maintain a 2D plane, all of those games trade in the typical pixel art for 3D models. Three out of five are new entries in long-running triple-A series that date back to the ’80s. And they’re all made by fairly large teams.
None of them, likely, cost as much as a typical triple-A game. But more resources are at their disposal than a typical indie game. In some cases it pays off: Metroid Dread is the best-selling game in Metroid series history. And, in some cases, it doesn’t: The Lost Crown team was shut down and were reportedly funneled into a Rayman remaster shortly after launch. But, regardless of the end results, bigger studios are now investing in Metroidvanias. For the genre’s fans, that seems like a good thing. Though not if it means indie Metroidvanias stop trying to compete.
