I really want to believe thatHollow Knight: Silksongis coming out this year, but it’s not looking good.I know the publisher is still promising it will be out by the end of 2025, but we still don’t have an official release date, andwe know the game was already delayed at least oncein 2023. I’m hopeful for a 2025 release, but if I’m being honest, I doubt it’s going to happen.
While the rest of us have sat around moaning for the last six years, Bandai Namco stepped up and did something about it. “I’m gonna go build my own Silksong!” it said, “with Pac-Man and mechs!” I’d say Shadow Labyrinth is the next best thing while we wait for Silksong, but I don’t know how good Silksong will even be, while I do know thatShadow Labyrinth is fantastic.
A True Old-School Metroidvania
I’ll admit that a sci-fi horror reimagining of Pac-Man doesn’t necessarily sound like the true successor to Hollow Knight. As a Metroidvania connoisseur (my official title here at TheGamer), I was as surprised as anyone to discover how great it is. It takes some time to really open up, but once it does, it’s easy to see how much influence it takes from Hollow Knight.
There are a lot of reasons Hollow Knight is held up as a modern Metroidvania classic, but its most important quality is its approach to open exploration. As the market has become more saturated and attention spans have gotten shorter, Metroidvanias have lost the spirit of exploration that once defined the genre. Keeping players on a tight leash and holding their hand is a great way to make sure everyone makes it to the end safely, but I want my Metroidvanias to feel like escaping a maze, not riding a roller coaster.
Hollow Knight captured the zeitgeist by giving players the freedom to find their own way and trusting them to get there. Everyone forges their own path through Hallownest, taking in the world at their own pace and uncovering its mysteries in a sequence unique to each person. The game’s indifference to your success makes Hollow Knight more challenging than most Metroidvanias, but that’s also what made it resonate with so many people.
Shadow Labyrinth has that same quality. Finding your way through the maze is an arduous and often punishing process. There are no hint systems or quest markers to help you when you get stuck. It’s just you, a lousy map, and a hunger to explore. Like Hollow Knight, Shadow Labyrinth respects its players and trusts them to solve the maze on their own. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re able to feel the difference between a game that coddles you through it and one that expects you to rise to its level.
Lost In A Labyrinth
Modern Metroidvanias like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Metroid Dread keep players on rails by only ever giving them a small area to explore before they find a key, allowing them to access another small area. This ensures players don’t get lost, but it hampers exploration greatly.
Shadow Labyrinth starts out just like that. You begin in the prison before moving on to the jungle, then the volcano, then the Black Tower. After that, you move to the hub town where you’re directed to the nearby underground lab. For the first eight to ten hours, you’re just moving from one area to the next.
The second that path branches, allowing you to head in two different directions at your own discretion, everything changes. These two zones have multiple paths of their own, leading to even more choices about which objectives to pursue. You can explore nine of the 18 biomes using only the tools you’ll acquire in the opening sequence. Once you find the double jump and grapple hook, you can access the other nine.
Hollow Knight has 19 zones, only one more than Shadow Labyrinth
That’s a tremendous amount of freedom that will almost certainly overwhelm you, but that’s the whole point. Those moments when you’ve retraced your steps so many times that you’re resorting to pushing on every wall to attempt to find a path forward are when a Metroidvania reaches its highest potential. There’s a reason Super Metroid fans can draw the map from memory but probably couldn’t even name a zone from Metroid Dread. When you’re helplessly lost, that’s when you’re really exploring the space; that’s when you’re the most present in the world.
Hollow Knight brought the explorer sensibility back to the Metroidvania, and in the eight years since, Shadow Labyrinth is the first game to capture that spirit again. While the wait for Silksong continues, Shadow Labyrinth reminds us why Hollow Knight is so special, and what a great Metroidvania can achieve.
