7 Metroidvania Games on Steam (October 2026) | Indie games with 90%+ Positive Reviews

Rather than steadily completing a fixed world, its Roguevania structure preserves access to unlocked routes while normally sending you back to rebuild your assault on the castle when your host dies.

Rolling lets you pass through an enemy while invulnerable, but you must wait before rolling again, so timing a dodge also means choosing when to switch sides.

Brutality, Tactics and Survival lean toward melee, ranged combat, or defense and heavy weapons, so you build an approach around the strengths of your weapons and mutations.

If you combine the gold-firing Money Shooter with Gold Plating, a mutation that spends gold instead of health when you are hit, ammunition and protection draw on the same reserve.

When an entrance to The Bank appears between regions, you choose whether to enter immediately and replace the next biome or pass up that visit for the run.

As you advance Boss Cell difficulty, some regions can appear as Cursed Biomes, letting you face curse-dealing enemies for better equipment or use the exit markers to choose a non-cursed route.

Higher Boss Cell tiers reduce healing supplies between biomes, and the highest standard difficulty adds Malaise, so you need health for the road ahead as well as the current fight.

When Malaise is active, its gauge rises with time and the enemies remaining, falls as you kill enemies, and stops rising once a biome is sufficiently cleared, linking safe exploration to the pace of clearing threats.

A curse-focused setup can use Cursed Flask to heal without spending flask charges in exchange for curses, then turn those curses into damage through Demonic Strength. A hit while cursed means instant death.

Reviewers describe both the pleasure of discovering synergies or rediscovering weapons and dissatisfaction with a narrow range of effective builds at higher difficulty; for long-term play, weigh the build freedom you seek against the appeal of refining execution.

Hallownest lets you choose your routes and opponents across interconnected caverns and ruined cities.

Movement abilities such as wings and a dash expand your options for crossing the terrain.

Alongside exploration driven by new abilities, you can buy compasses, quills, maps and pins to help you navigate.

Equip Charms at benches, choosing which effects will fill your available notches.

Even Wayward Compass uses equipment space to reveal your location, making navigation help a trade-off with another effect.

The Dream Nail lets you enter the minds of characters and enemies to discover a side of them beyond ordinary conversation.

Reviews value learning bosses’ attacks and refining the timing of dodges and counterattacks.

Players also enjoy charm combinations that emphasize the Nail, spells or their own preferred approach.

Finishing the game unlocks Steel Soul Mode, while Godmaster provides additional boss fights.

Reviews also describe long Pantheon runs as a strain on concentration or endurance, beyond knowing how to handle each boss.

Ori’s journey combines platforming and puzzles with combat using spirit weapons and spells.

Swapping Spirit Shards adjusts Ori’s abilities to suit your preferred approach.

Fast travel from the map is an upgrade bought from Opher, so saving travel time during exploration comes at an upgrade cost.

Spirit Shrines offer rewards for taking on successive waves of enemies.

Unlike ordinary exploration, where you inspect the map and surroundings, Spirit Trials prioritize reaching the finish quickly.

Area completion tracks collectibles and completed optional challenges, rather than simply how much of the map you have uncovered.

Separate from Hard Mode, achievement goals include Shardless, for finishing without equipping a shard, and Lightless, for finishing without spending Spirit Light.

Reviews describe Spirit Trials as a way to practise movement.

Players also discuss choosing weapons and shards around an approach such as melee or ranged attacks.

Bash launches Ori from lanterns or enemy projectiles and sends projectiles the opposite way, making your route and their destination a shared aiming decision.

Kuro’s Feather adds gliding and wind-current travel to a growing moveset that changes how you cross Nibel.

Instead of relying solely on fixed save hubs, Soul Link lets you place a respawn point in a safe location.

Creating a Soul Link spends energy, so saving your current progress means using a reserve you could keep for a later save.

In the Definitive Edition, Dash sends Ori a short distance forward. Light Burst can be thrown immediately or held to aim its trajectory.

Travel between discovered Spirit Wells also lets you choose where to begin retracing a route for missed items.

Dash and Light Burst can be upgraded through the ability tree. One Dash upgrade damages enemies you pass through; a further upgrade lets you dash in midair.

Black Root Burrows combines limited visibility with a carried light orb that changes how you interact with parts of the environment.

Hard and One-Life settings offer alternatives to a standard playthrough.

Reviews also describe pursuing achievements for a deathless run or a faster clear.

Yi’s deflections gather Qi from incoming attacks, making defense preparation for retaliation.

You can send stored Qi into enemies and detonate it with a Taoist talisman, choosing whether to spend it on the current opening or save it for the next.

Rather than relying on sword and bow alone, you combine deflections and attacks with air dashes and wall climbing as you cross New Kunlun.

Explore secrets across connected regions and meet inhabitants who offer new abilities or equipment upgrades.

Seeking treasures off the main route takes time away from onward progress and brings enemies and traps to confront.

A detailed map is available from the start, but collection progress requires Shan-Hai chips, separating route information from tracking what remains.

Reaching any ending unlocks Battle Memories for rematches against defeated bosses, allowing practice without replaying the story.

Reviewers value learning tells and attack timing, refining deflections and counters until they can handle bosses that initially overwhelmed them.

Reviews also describe changing builds, including jade combinations that link attacks with recovery.

Lily defeats formidable foes and frees them from their curse, then advances using the swords, bows and magic of her new allies.

You can rearrange acquired skills, choosing attacks to suit fighting up close or at a distance.

Relics change your stats too, so you choose a build as well as a set of attacks.

Combat asks you to read enemy attacks and switch between continuing your offense and retreating with evasion or a dash.

You choose whether to head toward the next formidable enemy or spend time exploring for hidden relics.

Enemies are not simply obstacles you defeat and leave behind: taking defeated foes into later battles as abilities connects exploration with combat.

From a rest point's Memories menu, Purified Memories lets you rematch purified bosses at a strength based on the current chapter. Wins also yield enhancement materials.

Purifying every boss unlocks Maligned Memories, a consecutive boss challenge that records clear times. It gives you a reason to work on faster clears after learning individual fights.

New Game+ carries over Lily’s status, skills, relics and more while strengthening enemy AI and actions as well as their stats, testing your developed build under tougher conditions.

Some event-related items do not carry over, however, so this is not a restart with everything intact.

The Penitent One gains Mea Culpa combos and special moves, reading enemies and bosses to find opportunities to attack.

Rosary Beads, Sword Hearts and Prayers offer build choices, letting you experiment with equipment combinations as well as sword techniques.

Against enemies that can be executed, charged or lunging attacks can cause a stun when used as counters or during an enemy’s wind-up, offering an alternative to simply striking until they fall.

In its non-linear world, you can place your own map markers to separate the route you are taking now from places to investigate later.

Upgrading Prie Dieu altars enables travel between previously visited altars, letting you save travel time by teleporting or spend that time re-examining the surroundings on foot.

Helping suffering inhabitants or meeting their terms ties rewards to learning about their lives.

New Game+ retains sword upgrades, Sword Hearts, Rosary Beads and Prayers, but resets Health, Fervour and Bile Flasks to their base levels, requiring you to reclaim them while facing stronger enemies.

Choosing the Penitence of the Unwavering Faith halves melee effectiveness. Fervour regenerates over time but falls when you take damage, shifting combat toward Prayers.

The Penitence of the Bleeding Heart replaces the health bar with orbs. Taking damage stops the gradual healing from a Bile Flask, so you need to avoid hits while recovering.

Completing the game unlocks Sacred Sorrows Mode. Its boss rush courses give you times and ranks to improve apart from exploration.