As someone who is regularly barred from certain rooms due to a lack of abilities and resources, metroidvanias are a familiar and enthralling experience for me. Now you can experience them too, thanks to a recently launched Humble Bundle that contains some of the best metroidvanias of the last few years for a mere $15/£12.
That'll net you a gaggle of games featuring:
- Hollow Knight
- Rain World
- Blasphemous
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
- Lost Ruins
- Lone Fungus
- Haiku the Robot
Every single one of those boasts a user review score of over 90% on Steam, and one of them—Hollow Knight—enjoys a spot on our best metroidvania games on PC list, although to be honest I think quite a few of them could argue for a place.
The headliner is obviously Hollow Knight, the bug-based side-scrolling adventure whose sequel fans are still patiently, patiently awaiting. There's not much to say about it that hasn't already been said, so I'll let Tom Marks' Hollow Knight review from all the way back in 2017 do the talking: "The more effort I put into it, the more Hollow Knight rewarded me with thrilling challenges and beautiful, storied caverns to discover … 35 hours later I can confidently say Hollow Knight is one of the best games I've played".
I have to call out Blasphemous, too, the haunting game from Spanish studio Game Kitchen, where everything is draped in an intensely Catholic aesthetic without actually being Catholic. It's one of the most visually arresting games I've ever played, and with Blasphemous 2 out later this year there's never been a better time to familiarise yourself with the series.
As for the rest? You can't really go wrong with any of them. Bloodstained is a modernised take on Castlevania from one of that series' original creators—Koji Igarashi—and we rather liked it when it came out in 2019; Rain World is a tough platformer featuring a cat who is also a slug; Lost Ruins has a intriguing combat system that sees you mix up traditional melee with magical status effects; Haiku, the Robot is an adorable take on Hollow Knight's formula; and Lone Fungus just looks like he's having a whale of a time no matter what he's doing. I can't say no to that face.
