Ive played through bloodstained, chasm, iconoclasts, hollowknight, dawn of sorrow and portrait of ruin, deaths gambit, sundered, some of the momodori series, ori and the woods, and a few others ive forgotten, do you have any more metroidvania recs that are out right now, plauge huntress doesnt count cus that hasnt updated its info in almost years now. Bonus points if the game had a grapplehook swinging mechanic.
You understand what you’re getting into by asking me this question, right?
In any case, a few recent favourites (provided your idea of “recent” means ”published this decade”):
Alwa’s Awakening - This one invokes an older “vania” than most Metroidvanias, drawing primarily from Castlevania II, complete with its preoccupation with hidden passages and near-total lack of signposting.
A Robot Named Fight! - One of the vanishingly few efforts to combine the Metroidvania and roguelike genres that actually plays like a proper Metroidvania. Fair warning: the audiovisual design is… meaty.
Axiom Verge - Starts out as a nearly pure Super Metroid clone, but rapidly takes it in a very different (and very brainfucky) direction. Not quite so nonlinear as Hollow Knight, but it’s close!
Column on the Sea - The way this one plays puts me in mind of a Kirby game, though I’m not 100% sure why. Has a lot more content than you’d expect looking at the production values.
Dandara - A mobile-friendly Metroidvania designed to be played with a touch screen, though a PC gamepad will do in a pinch. Just got a big content update less than a week before I made this post.
Dust: An Elysian Tale - A hack and slash brawler that takes its cues from the old Vanillaware library, particularly Muramasa: The Demon Blade. A good one if you’re a fan of racking up big combos.
Environment Station Alpha - Another fairly straight Super Metroid clone, this one never strays very far from its brief, but manages to do some interesting things within that framework.
Even the Ocean - A nonviolent puzzle platformer with mechanics based on manipulating mass and momentum. Includes light visual novel style interludes between chapters.
The Fall - The first of two Metroidvania/point-and-click adventure game hybrids on this list. Don’t expect a lot of action out of this one – it’s mostly about gender roles.
forma.8 - A UFO-piloting game in the style pioneered by Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, though considerably less monochromatic. You do grapple stuff, though since you can fly there’s not much swinging.
Gato Roboto - A fun little one-bit retro platformer where you play as a housecat piloting a giant mech suit; think Blaster Master meets Earthworm Jim and you’ll have the right general idea.
Kunai - Play as a sapient tablet PC and fight evil robots. It’s short and has a fair bit of unrewarding backtracking, but if you like grapple hook mechanics, this is the game for you.
LostWinds 2 - Technically not actually this decade, as it’s a port of a 2009 Nintendo Wii title, but I’m invoking “it’s my post” privilege. I’m plugging the sequel because it’s the stronger game by a fair margin.
Mini Ghost - A retro MSX-style prequel to Ghost 1.0 (which doesn’t make my recommended list due to Reasons), this one’s main draw is the included level editor.
Mystik Belle - The aforementioned second Metroidvania/point-and-click adventure hybrid. Play in easy mode if you won’t want to deal with annoying inventory size restrictions.
Outbuddies - A lot of the games in this post are retro, but this one takes the unusual step of modelling itself after pre-1990 PC games rather than consoles. Wonderfully nonlinear, if you can get over the useless map.
Out There Somewhere - This one doesn’t have a grappling hook, but it does have a teleporter gun, which is… grappling hook adjacent? It enables many of the same sorts of physics puzzles, at any rate.
Owlboy - This one’s very similar to Iconoclasts, both in terms of its production values and in terms of the fact that it spent over a decade in development hell, yet somehow turned out to be good.
Seasons after Fall - An atmospheric walking simulator with light Metroidvania elements. Don’t boot this one up if you’re looking to get in a quick play session – it moves slooooow.
Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse - Gameplay-wise, it’s one of the best casual Metroidvanias of its generation; design-wise, it’s incredibly horny – like, pixel art boob physics horny. You’ve been warned!
Song of the Deep - An underwater exploration game that – like Gato Roboto, above – features both in-vehicle and out-of-vehicle gameplay. A spiritual successor to Aquaria (see below).
SteamWorld Dig 2 - A Metroidvania crossbred with an arcade-style mining game; like, imagine if Dig Dug had a plot. It’s part of a larger metaplot, but the story is mostly comprehensible by itself.
SuperEpic: The Entertainment War - Self-styled comedy games are always a mixed bag, and this one is no exception. You do get to play as a raccoon riding a llama, though.
Teslagrad - A predominantly linear puzzle platformer that needs a lot of squinting to qualify as Metroidvania; I’m including it mostly because I really like its visual style.
Timespinner - Very Symphony of the Night. Cons: doesn’t do much with its central premise of time manipulation outside of a few early puzzles. Pros: not a single character in this game is heterosexual.
Touhou Luna Nights - This one has excellent production values for a fan-game, and – unlike the preceding rec – it actually does some interesting things with its time mechanics.
Treasure Hunter Man 2 - This lightweight Wonder Boy inspired title is a sequel to a 2008 freeware game, casting you in the role of the first game’s protagonist’s mom.
Valdis Story: Abyssal City - A gothic platformer with four mechanically distinct playable characters. Look up a no-spoilers guide for the true ending – you won’t be getting it without one!
Vision Soft Reset - A run-and-gun platformer where save points are also save states: when you fast travel to an earlier save point, you also travel back in time to whenever you last saved there.
Waking Mars - If you’ve gotten this far you’re probably expecting to see weird genre crossbreeds, but get this: this one’s a cross between a Metroidvania and a gardening simulator!
Wuppo - A super-artsy exploration platformer with some very odd gameplay choices, including an entire chapter that can be completed by waiting – in real time – for someone else to fix the problem for you.
Yoku’s Island Express - Arguably more of a collectathon platformer than a Metroidvania, I’m including this one mostly for the novelty of its pinball-based gameplay mechanics.
If you’re willing to consider games that I enjoyed, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend to general audiences owing to unreasonable difficulty, conspicuously janky mechanics, and/or being old enough that getting them to run properly on modern PCs can be a challenge, you might have a look at any of Aquaria, Catmaze, Cave Story, Fortune Summoners, Guardian, Mable & The Wood (grapple hook mechanics in this one), Mech Chip, Saira, Visual Out and You Have to Win the Game.
Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils would also make the latter list, but it’s been withdrawn from sale by the publisher at the time of this posting, with no ETA on when – or whether – it will become available again. I think Outland is presently in the same boat, which is a shame, because it would have given me an excuse to include another goofy genre hybrid (Metroidvania with Ikaruga-style colours swapping bullet hell mechanics, in this case).
Finally, both Blaster Master Zero and its sequel recently received PC ports, so those may be worth checking out if you didn’t catch them on consoles.
(To anticipate the obvious question, yes, I have in fact played – and in most cases completed – every game mentioned in this post. Remember when I said my taste in games is extraordinary predictable? Yeah.)
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